Alumni Office Hours with Rachel Laxer (PhD '17)

Wednesday, January 19, 2022 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm EST (GMT -05:00)

Photo of Rachel Laxer with text saying "Alumni office hours event series"

Join Rachel Laxer, the Applied Public Health Science Specialist at Public Health Ontario, for a casual conversation on her career journey. Rachel Laxer will share highlights from her career and answer your questions.

Come expecting to learn: 

  • how Public Health is such an incredible and diverse field,
  • how you can use it to feel more equipped for situations like COVID-19,
  • and the benefits of taking interesting and challenging roles.

Please submit a question and come ready to add to the chat! Spots are limited so sign up now!

About Rachel

Rachel Laxer has been working at Public Health Ontario (PHO) in their Health Promotion, Chronic Disease and Injury Prevention department since April of 2017. She started out as an Evaluation Specialist, evaluating Ministry of Health’s programs and policies, including the Healthy Kids Community Challenge (HKCC), a program designed to promote healthy behaviours in children aged 0-12 years in 45 communities across Ontario. This work was directly aligned with that of her PhD dissertation research from the School of Public Health and Health Systems at UW, which explored health promoting behaviours, school policies and programs, and weight status of secondary school students in Ontario.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, much of Rachel’s work shifted to focus on elements of the COVID-19 response, including evaluating some public health measures (e.g., voluntary isolation centres) as well as PHO’s internal response to COVID-19. Rachel worked closely with her network of public health evaluators across the province to learn about new and emerging evaluation methods to use in situations that are constantly in flux.

Given her expertise in school health, Rachel shifted into a new role at PHO in October, and is now working as an Applied Public Health Science Specialist in School-aged health. While most of her work is still on COVID-19, she is starting to branch out and work and collaborate with others in the field of school health, including her old colleagues from the COMPASS Study at UW!