Welcome to Kickin’ It in the Kitchen, a miniseries by the Catalyze podcast that explores the transformative summers of the Morehead-Cain Program. In the Professional Experience summer, scholars begin to explore the transition from Carolina to the working world by pursuing a professional internship. In this episode, host Aadya Gattu ’28 of the Scholar Media Team speaks with Wehazit Mussie ’26, a pre-dental history and medical anthropology major, about her nearly two-month internship with the Clinton Health Access Initiative in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. As a Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning intern, Wehazit supported documentation, communications, and data analytics efforts across multiple program areas while collaborating closely with Ethiopia’s Ministry of Health. Originally from Eritrea with family ties to Ethiopia, Wehazit reflects on the personal dimension of her professional experience, including reunions with relatives and visiting places her parents once lived. Their conversation explores how her academic interests in history and medical anthropology intersect with data-driven public health work, what surprised her about the role, and how being in Ethiopia added unique global perspective to her Professional Experience.
Welcome to Kickin’ It in the Kitchen, a miniseries by the Catalyze podcast that explores the transformative summers of the Morehead-Cain Program. In the Professional Experience summer, scholars begin to explore the transition from Carolina to the working world by pursuing a professional internship.
In this episode, host Aadya Gattu ’28 of the Scholar Media Team speaks with Wehazit Mussie ’26, a pre-dental history and medical anthropology major, about her nearly two-month internship with the Clinton Health Access Initiative in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
As a Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning intern, Wehazit supported documentation, communications, and data analytics efforts across multiple program areas while collaborating closely with Ethiopia’s Ministry of Health.
Originally from Eritrea with family ties to Ethiopia, Wehazit reflects on the personal dimension of her professional experience, including reunions with relatives and visiting places her parents once lived. Their conversation explores how her academic interests in history and medical anthropology intersect with data-driven public health work, what surprised her about the role, and how being in Ethiopia added unique global perspective to her Professional Experience.
Music credits
The episode’s intro song is by scholar Scott Hallyburton ’22, guitarist of the band South of the Soul.
How to listen
On your mobile device, you can listen and subscribe to Catalyze on Apple Podcastsor Spotify. For any other podcast app, you can find the show using our RSS feed. You can let us know what you thought of the episode by finding us on social media @moreheadcain or you can email us at communications@moreheadcain.org.
(Aadya)
Welcome to Kickin’ It in the Kitchen, a series by the Catalyze podcast. I’m your host, Aadya Gattu, from the class of 2028. This series explores the how, why, and what behind the Morehead-Cain Summer Enrichment Program. Over the course of four years, scholars progress through Outdoor Leadership, Civic Collaboration, Global Perspective, and Professional Experience. These metamorphic summers are designed to help scholars develop leadership skills, increase self-awareness, and expand their understanding of the world.
In this episode, we speak with Wehazit Mussie from the class of 2026 about her Professional Experience summer, where scholars begin to explore the transition from Carolina to the working world by pursuing a professional internship. Wehazit interned for the Clinton Health Access Initiative in Ethiopia with a focus on data analytics. Wehazit, thank you so much for being here today.
(Wehazit)
Thank you for having me.
(Aadya)
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself—what you’re studying, your class year, involvement, where you’re from?
(Wehazit)
So I am a senior. I’m class of 2026, and I am a pre-dental history and medical anthropology major. And so, I’m really, really passionate about public health, so I think that’s pretty reflective in my involvement. I do undergraduate research at the Nutrition Research Institute, which I really, really love, and we focus on eating disorders in people of color. And then another one of my favorite commitments is the Minority Health Conference, which is the largest student-led public health conference—conference in general—where I have my students.
(Aadya)
That’s awesome.
(Wehazit)
Yeah, it’s really, really cool. And so, I’m a co-chair on that, and all of those have been really, really great experiences to learn more about public health and all of those things.
(Aadya)
Yeah. I mean, Carolina has a fantastic public health program, so that’s awesome. Can you walk me through your journey for your Professional Experience summer? I mean, clearly, I think you went in with a bit of a desire to work in public health, but I’d love to hear about your inspiration.
(Wehazit)
Yeah, of course. So, all of my summers—my Morehead-Cain summers—have been surrounded by public health and public health clinicians, which has been really amazing. And so, coming into planning for a PE, I knew that I did want to focus on public health.
So, my Civic Collaboration summer we spent working with Johns Hopkins and Morgan State University to increase diversity in cardiovascular research trials, which I agree. And then the summer after that, I did a public health nutrition course. And then I was an undergraduate researcher in Zanzibar to work on malaria and malaria transmission with the School of Medicine. And those summers were really great; they all taught me lessons. So, I knew that my Professional Experience summer—I wanted that to be the same.
And so, I started planning pretty early. I had a lot—I had meetings with various people to ask what they think I should be doing; how can I make the most out of this summer? And I met a lot of great people, a lot of Morehead-Cain alums who were willing to help. And yeah. So, when I found out about CHAI, which is the Clinton Health Access Initiative, I really, really liked the work that they were doing, and so I really wanted to be a part of that in any way that I could. And so, I started reaching out to previous scholars who had worked with them. And then I reached out to a Morehead-Cain alum who currently works with them, and that’s what got everything started.
(Aadya)
Yeah. I think that’s a common trend among scholar summers—that the Morehead-Cain community, the current and the alum, is so supportive.
(Wehazit)
It is. Like, truly.
(Aadya)
Truly. It’s unbelievable. But can you talk to me about any roadblocks or redirections you had in the planning of this summer?
(Wehazit)
Yeah. So, before I started my PE planning officially, I did not think that I wanted to spend another summer abroad. I spent the past summer before that abroad, and it had been a great experience, but I really just thought that I’d want to be here.
And so, when I started working with CHAI initially and started talking to previous scholars who worked with them and the alum, I really emphasized that I wanted to be in one of their offices in the U.S. And as time went on, as it got closer and things like that, it became clear that I’m not really sure if that’s going to be able to happen. And I had a lot of advice to work in a program-area country. And so, yeah, that was my biggest roadblock, but it turned out to be great.
(Aadya)
Yeah, that’s awesome. Can you tell me a little bit more about that? Did you choose the country you worked in?
(Wehazit)
Okay, yeah. So, after realizing I don’t think it’s going to be possible to work in the country, I decided that Ethiopia would be the best country for me to be in because it has personal connections and it has professional connections, and I knew it would be a really formative experience for me.
(Aadya)
Yeah, that’s awesome. You seem to have really wanted to work with the Clinton Health Access Initiative. Can you talk to me a bit about the work they do and why you felt so connected to it?
(Wehazit)
In the summers previous, I’d done more front-facing work with patients or people in the research trials or people who were going to be in our research. And that was all really, really great. But I found these common themes within that of big-picture barriers that I wanted to be able to help change.
So, it’s really, really great to do these changes on a smaller scale, but I think what CHAI does really, really well is work on that bigger scale. They work with the government, and they work with the Ministry of Health and all of these really, really big organizations or things of that nature.
I really, really appreciated the fact that they are doing really, really important work, and they’re just trying to make things easier for that front-facing work and for those clinicians. And yeah, I really wanted to be a part of that.
(Aadya)
I mean, to me, it sounds like a synthesis of your summers before—you were working on smaller, tailored projects, and now it’s this policy thing. That’s beautiful.
So, you mentioned you’ve had personal and professional connections in Ethiopia. Had you been there before?
(Wehazit)
I had not. That was my first time.
(Aadya)
Okay. Can you tell me a bit about what it felt like to be there?
(Wehazit)
So I was really lucky. My mom had grown up a little bit in Ethiopia.
(Aadya)
Really?
(Wehazit)
Yeah. And so, she came with me for the first two weeks of my trip.
(Aadya)
That’s so special.
(Wehazit)
Oh my gosh, yeah. She speaks the language and she knows her way around, and she’s been there in recent years. And then she knew where my family was and all of these things. And so that really, really helped.
But coming there, it was just surreal because I had never been surrounded by so many people who shared similar cultural values and who looked like me. It was just a really crazy thing to experience. It was really beautiful to learn about the way that my culture and their culture are similar. I’m from Eritrea, and it’s right above Ethiopia.
It was just such a welcoming community that I was immersed in. And I met so many wonderful people there who went out of their way so much to make sure that I was comfortable and that I was okay and that I knew how to get around. And so, yeah, I really, really liked it.
(Aadya)
Can you tell me about the biggest challenge working and living in a place you haven’t been before?
(Wehazit)
I think I realized during my experience that there were some ideas that I was bringing in from previous summers and previous work. And in some ways that was helpful, but in some ways, it was not, because it was as if I was coming in with these ways to help already. And it’s like—they can tell you how they need to be helped.
You don’t have to come in with these expectations of how you’re going to make a difference. It’s not up to you to decide that, especially when you’re doing public health work. And again, you’re working with people who can actively tell you what they need.
I think that was something I had to change—just being able to listen more and then do whatever I need to do based on what they need.
(Aadya)
That sounds a lot like the training we had for Civic Collaboration—the ethnographic interviewing, community-focused, human-centered design process.
(Wehazit)
Yes, exactly.
(Aadya)
Can you talk a little bit about your day-to-day at work?
(Wehazit)
Yeah. So, I was really lucky. I lived right across from my office. There was some moving around, but at the end—they were—yeah. Very quick commute.
I would go to the office around nine o’clock, and I wouldn’t leave till about 5:00, so a typical 9:00 to 5:00. We would have our meetings in the morning with the entire staff. And then we’d have a weekly meeting with our project director in the mornings.
Then I would go on and do all the work that they assigned me to do, which was a lot of data analytics and documentation and just making sure that they have a centralized knowledge base.
And then one thing that I really liked: they would do weekly midday coffee. Ethiopia is really big on coffee. And so, if I was ever tired, I knew that I just had to make it to that midday and I would have my coffee, and then I’d be wired and set for the rest of the day.
Then I’d continue doing my work after lunch, and then I would go home. And I really wanted to do various experiences in Ethiopia. So, I found a yoga studio to go to. I found a place to do pottery. I found a gym. And just doing these really cool experiences and meeting people was really great and made it feel more immersive.
(Aadya)
Just on that coffee note— I was in an Ethiopian coffee ceremony last—
(Wehazit)
Really?
(Aadya)
—that was the strongest coffee I’ve ever had. It was so good.
(Wehazit)
I did not expect it.
(Aadya)
So you mentioned to me before we started speaking that it was a data analytics focus on your internship. Was that something you chose or were assigned to?
(Wehazit)
I was assigned to it, but I think that it was based on what I had been telling them about my previous experiences during my summers and during the school year and the time commitments that I was working on. So yeah, I think that’s how they decided that I was going to go to that focus area.
(Aadya)
Yeah. And you mentioned earlier you’re a history and medical anthropology double-minor—double-major, sorry.
(Wehazit)
You’re okay.
(Aadya)
Can you talk a little bit more about that data analytics part? I feel like that’s such a wide range of ability.
(Wehazit)
Yeah. So, I think a lot of my data analytics skill came from being an undergraduate researcher. In my main lab, a lot of what we did was learning how to collect all of this information to make very informative decisions and interventions.
And then in my summer for my global experience, where I was working in that lab, it was a lot more data collection and learning how to analyze that and make informed decisions. So, I think both of those experiences came together.
And I think my history and medical anthropology background helped a lot because you know more about the backgrounds and the historical context of where you’re going. And especially for medical anthropology, you learn about how medical practices and medical feelings and knowledge are very based on where you were raised and where you grew up.
(Aadya)
Like the thing about people.
(Wehazit)
Yeah, exactly. So that all really came together.
(Aadya)
That’s beautiful. Can you tell me what surprised you about working for the Clinton Health Access Initiative? How did you grow?
(Wehazit)
They were so willing to help me learn, and that is really what they focused on. So, I would work with—they have a couple of different program areas, so I would work with each of the program areas to learn more about what they did.
And I think that them going out of their way to make me feel like I am getting the most I can out of this experience was something I really appreciated and something I hope to take with me in my future commitments. I think that surprised me the most—how considerate they were of my experience and my learning experience.
(Aadya)
That’s really special. Do you have any funny stories our listeners should hear about your summer?
(Wehazit)
I think my favorite story from there is the first weekend my mom and I went to church. We found this on Google Maps, and it was the closest one to us. So, we walked there, and then we’re sitting in the front row. I’m a little bit tired, but it’s okay.
And my mom just gasps, and I’m like, “Is she okay?” I look over—that wakes me up. I’m like, “Is she okay?” And then she looks up at the altar and she’s like, “Do you know who that is?”—talking about the priest. And I’m like, “No.” And she was like, “That is the man who baptized you.”
Oh my God. What is she talking about? And she was like, “Yeah.” And mind you, I got baptized when I was nine months old. I was 21 at that point. But she was like, “Yeah, he baptized you.” And I didn’t know he would be there. None of us knew that he’d be there. And I hadn’t seen him in—what—like twenty years?
(Aadya)
Yeah.
(Wehazit)
Then after church we went to go speak with him. He was shocked, too, because the last time he saw me—
(Aadya)
Surely, he didn’t recognize you.
(Wehazit)
He recognized my mom. He recognized my mom. I think it took him a second to recognize who I was.
(Aadya)
Sure—you look a little different.
(Wehazit)
I would hope. It was just really, really crazy. It was just this—
(Aadya)
Surreal.
(Wehazit)
—surreal experience. Out of all the places that you could be—
(Aadya)
—this random Google Maps church.
(Wehazit)
This random Google Maps church, and I’m seeing someone who I haven’t seen in so long. That feels fateful.
It did feel really fateful. I feel like a lot of my Morehead-Cain experiences have felt really fateful. Then after that, he would help—after my mom left, he would help me figure out things to do or ways to just feel more comfortable and go out of his way to take me around if I needed to. And so yeah, very fateful, like you said. And it was just a really crazy, crazy thing to see.
(Aadya)
That’s really funny. My last question for you: If someone asked you how the summer impacted you, what would you say? I know you touched on this a little bit but give me a thesis.
(Wehazit)
Yeah, of course. So, I think this summer is really special in the sense that I grew very personally and professionally.
Personally, I met so many family members who currently live in Ethiopia, and they would tell me about my family members and how they grew up and about my grandparents who I don’t know much about. And so that was just a really amazing thing.
I came out with a newfound sense of who I am and what my culture is and all of these things. And they were just so willing to help and make me feel like I’m at home. So that is something I want to take away from that.
And then professionally, in the same way—my boss and the staff and my coworkers really went out of their way to make this such a big learning experience. I think what I got from that—and that is the goal of these summers—is to learn and to be better professionally, and how to listen more, and how to create projects not based on what you think you can do but what they are telling you can do.
(Aadya)
Well, I love that and thank you so much for sharing all your stories with me. And thank you for listening to Kickin’ It in the Kitchen, a series by the Catalyze podcast. I’m your host, Aadya Gattu from the class of 2028, and that was Wehazit Mussie from the class of 2026.
You can learn more about the Morehead-Cain Summer Enrichment Program on our website at moreheadcain.org. This episode was recorded on video at the Morehead-Cain Foundation at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. You can watch all of our Kickin’ It in the Kitchen videos on our YouTube channel at Morehead-Cain. And if you prefer to listen, you can find Catalyze wherever you get your podcasts.
You can let us know what you thought of this episode by emailing us at communications@moreheadcain.org or by finding us on social media at Morehead-Cain. Thank you for listening.