Life as a Recent GlobeMed Alum: Mackenzie Burke
Despite how much it would shape her college experience, Mackenzie Burke joined GlobeMed mostly by accident.
As a freshman, Mackenzie (George Washington University, ’20) arrived on campus right off a formative gap year spent traveling throughout East Africa (Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya), East Timor, and Peru. In her gap year, Mackenzie had spent some time doing leisure activities like rafting and hiking, but also a significant amount of time with research, volunteering, and teaching programs.
“I had seen a lot of the harm that had been done in the name of international aid during my gap year,” Mackenzie reflects. Once she arrived on campus, where she was beginning her studies as a public health major, she began looking for a group of students that was like-minded when it came to international development and public health.
However, Mackenzie had completely missed GlobeMed at the student organization fair. She only heard about the chapter when she was talking to a fellow Honors student, who off-handedly mentioned she was going to a GlobeMed information session and asked if Mackenzie had heard of them. Intrigued, Mackenzie went with her, and once she heard students speak at the session, she was hooked.
“I felt like it brought together a lot of my passions and what I had learned during my gap year and what I wanted to continue educating myself about,” Mackenzie recalls.
During her time at GlobeMed at GWU, Mackenzie served as Partner Liaison and GROW Coordinator and went on the 2018 GROW internship to work with her chapter’s partner, Set Her Free. “Throughout my four years, it was probably my favorite organization I was a part of at GW,” she says. “I was really involved. I met some of my best friends at college and was subsequently able to go to Uganda to visit our partner organization on the GROW internship, which was an incredible experience.”
As Mackenzie was wrapping up her time at George Washington University and thinking about how to channel her passion for global health into a career, the lessons she had learned through GlobeMed served as an important compass. “GlobeMed offered a lot of insight into good ways to enter the global health field as a white woman, and they offered a lot of insight into ways in which I did not want to enter the global health field as a white woman,” Mackenzie says. To this day, how she approaches her work is deeply informed by GlobeMed values and experiences. “I think there’s a lot of organizations out there that border on white saviorism [. . .] and GlobeMed’s mission and passion is the antithesis of that. So I really sought out opportunities in the global health sphere that weren’t bordering on that kind of line. I wanted to make sure that what I learned during my time in GlobeMed further continued in my job.”
“[GlobeMed] was very instrumental in opening my eyes to different frameworks, like anti-oppression frameworks, decolonization, and just overall more ethical global health frameworks and how we can make a change for the better without harming communities that we want to better.”
Now, Mackenzie works as a Program Coordinator at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), focusing on the Center’s HIV/AIDS portfolio and assisting with their health security and immunizations portfolios. But the GlobeMed network is vast, and connections can be found everywhere, even when least expected. In the summer of 2020 before Mackenzie graduated, she had an informational interview with one of her current co-workers about CSIS. It turned out she was a GlobeMed alum as well, and they connected over their shared experiences and perspectives from GlobeMed.
Once a GlobeMedder, always a GlobeMedder is a common refrain throughout the network, and that’s how Mackenzie sees it, too. “I always know that if I meet a fellow GlobeMedder out in the world that we have a mutual understanding of certain values, and those values often don’t need to be communicated,” she says. Later, when a position at CSIS opened up, she applied and reached back out to that alum, harnessing the power of the GlobeMed network.
“I definitely feel like the GlobeMed network is super helpful in terms of supporting each other with internships and other opportunities, finding jobs, things like that,” Mackenzie says, reflecting on the role the GlobeMed network has in her life as a recent graduate. “In terms of staying connected with my GlobeMed chapter at GW, I still follow all the social media, I donate when possible. I always want to stay up to date with our partners, Set Her Free.”
As for advice to current GlobeMed students, Mackenzie’s biggest recommendation is to take advantage of the moment. “The GlobeMed network is incredible, and it’s important to take initiative in tapping into that. [. . .] There’s not many opportunities after you graduate where you get to be surrounded by fellow peers, who are passionate about the same things and want to have intellectual conversations that push your boundaries of what you thought was possible.”
