EP82 What you should know about PhDs with Dr. Ben Spoer

In this episode we talk to NYU GPH alum Dr. Ben Spoer. Before starting his PhD at GPH Ben received a Bachelors in Philosophy from UC Berkeley. Despite that he found a job as a holistic health counselor at Lincoln High School on Coney Island in Brooklyn, NY. The students at Lincoln inspired Ben to pursue public health. Many of them lived in places that made it difficult, if not impossible, to be healthy, and they didn't know what to do about it. Hoping to solve this problem Ben went on to earn a Master's in Public Health from Columbia University, and now his PhD from GPH. Ben's research focuses on exposure measurement, food and built environments, and racial residential segregation. His dissertation explored the use of GPS data in defining food, built, and sociodemographic environmental exposures. Ben also taught the Masters-level thesis class at GPH while working towards his PhD. After graduation he will be working at NYU's Langone Medical Center on the City Health Dashboard project, a data democratization initiative that provides health data for the 500 largest cities in the United States. If you would like to learn more about his take on Public Health, pursuing a PhD and taking care of your mental health, this episode is for you! To learn more about the NYU School of Global Public Health, and how our innovative programs are training the next generation of public health leaders, visit publichealth.nyu.edu.