Jennifer Rowley

Whether she is teaching English in Nepal, volunteering in an orphanage in Cambodia, or working with teenagers in the neighborhoods of St. Louis, Jennifer Rowley, a senior in Anthropology studying Global Health and Environment, is passionately committed to helping others. As her nominator, Craig Smith, said, “Jenny is the nicest and most compassionate person I’ve ever met and her lifelong service to others is truly inspirational.”

During her junior year, a non-profit pediatric clinic called Health and Dental Care for Kids asked Jennifer to develop a sexual health seminar for teenagers with a past pregnancy or sexually transmitted infections. This program is now known as “Indies.” The hallmark of this seminar is that the volunteers and participants break out into individual discussion (“Indies”) groups to ask questions and further engage with the material. Jennifer has trained many of her peers as volunteer facilitators to ensure that the program will thrive after she graduates.

Jennifer has also served for Washington University’s Undergraduate Public Health Association and Give Thanks Give Back. She created the ‘1in5’ campaign, a weekly set of poverty awareness events held on campus for two months seeking to bring light to the prevalence and severity of poverty in the St. Louis area.

As an aspiring photographer, Jennifer publishes photo essays about marginalized communities all over the world. After living in and photographing the Himba and Bushmen relocation settlements in Southern Africa, her photo series was published in a human rights magazine in 2011, and this summer she is planning a trip to Iraq for a portrait series of the children of Kurdistan. Through her travels and service, she has witnessed first hand the inadequacies of health care in St. Louis and around the globe, fueling a passion for innovative solutions to solve flaws in health institutions. Academically, Jennifer pursues this passion through an interest in medicine, public health, and anthropology. She plans to spend a few years after college working in community development before attending medical school.