Alumni Member
Seema Yasmin
Within a few months of finishing the Fellowship, Seema was one of the top health reporters in the United States — appearing regularly on CNN to report on Ebola, covering health as a staff reporter for The Dallas Morning News, and teaching as a professor of public health at the University of Texas at Dallas. Seema came to the program from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where she’d been an Epidemic Intelligence Officer, investigating outbreaks in Arizona. She’d earned her medical degree at the University of Cambridge and had worked as a physician in her native UK. Her goal: To expand her public health work with well-informed reporting on health issues in media. During the Fellowship, Seema wrote a series of major features for the Dallas Morning News, Scientific American and The Toronto Star. The Dallas Morning News quickly hired her to cover health, and regularly put her on-air with the local NBC affiliate too. When Ebola hit her city, Seema gained national attention for her rock-solid reporting in the paper, and sober-minded daily appearances on CNN, where she is now a regular contributor.
“Never thought I’d live in Texas. Never thought I’d get to write a piece about public health and immigrant children (for an audience of a few hundred thousand as opposed to the handful of people who read specialist public health journals). Never thought I’d be on TV within days of arriving in Texas! And it wouldn’t have happened without the fellowship in global journalism and your relationship with the Dallas Morning News. They’re the nicest, smartest people and I am loving it here so much. Thank you for helping to make this happen! Seriously.”