EP180 Service is Joy: Building a Career in Community Advocacy with Gail Viaje

In this episode, we speak with Gail Viaje (MPH '24), an international student from the Philippines who shifted from a pre-med track at Fordham to Community Health Science and Practice (CHSP). Gail explains how the I AM GPH podcast served as her initial window into the program. She describes the benefit of GPH's teaching excellence, specifically how Dr. David Abrams and Dr. Joyce Moon Howard helped her translate classroom theory into professional practice. Gail highlights the unique "family" feel of her small cohort of 35 students, where peer-to-peer mentorship was common. Now working as a case manager, she applies the writing skills and needs assessment training from her grant writing and program planning classes to draft legal documentation and help families navigate complex resources. This conversation illustrates the student success found through the NYU network and Gail's personal philosophy that true joy is found through a career in service. 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

You can listen to EP180 Service is Joy: Building a Career in Community Advocacy with Gail Viaje online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

EP180 Service is Joy: Building a Career in Community Advocacy with Gail Viaje is an episode from I AM GPH by NYU School of Global Public Health.

This episode is 30:06 long.

This episode was published on Apr 9, 2026.

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