Write Stuff

Alum Offers Advice to Pulitzer Reporting Fellow Hopefuls

Varsha Ramikrishnan, MBBS, MPH '13, always loved to write, trying her hand at fiction and non-fiction in high school and medical school. However, the time demands on a physician-in-training left her little free time to pursue writing on a professional level.

Last year, as an MPH student at the Bloomberg School studying gender-based violence, Ramikrishnan found a way to combine her passion for public health and her dreams of writing through the Johns Hopkins-Pulitzer Center Global Health Reporting Fellowship.

The inaugural recipient of the $5,000 fellowship, she spent last summer training with journalists at the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting in Washington, D.C., before traveling to India as a correspondent to report on dowry violence against women.

It was a transformative experience for Ramikrishnan, whose powerful feature appeared in the Fall 2013 issue of Johns Hopkins Public Health.

"Although it was an emotionally trying journey, I have grown so much as a person, a physician and a public health professional with this fellowship," she said.

The fellowship is just one example of the many scholarship and funding opportunities available to students.

Now a public health consultant with the World Bank in India, Ramikrishnan will share her experiences in person on March 4 at a fellowship information session at noon in the Anna Baetjer Room, W1030. Pulitzer Center staff will also provide an overview of the program.

All degree students at the School, including May 2014 graduates, are eligible to apply. The deadline is March 26.

Ramikrishnan's advice for students interested in the fellowship: "Find something to write about that incites anger within you, something you wish the world would be equally angry about."

Johns Hopkins-Pulitzer Global Health Reporting Fellowship

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