Alumni Features on her first day was put to work on the H1N1 swine flu outbreak. Two days later, she became part of the group briefing the country’s minister of health. She was later named a health systems strengthening advisor and became a CDC contractor. After five years, she moved to Haiti and assumed her current role. All this moving around is nothing new for Ahmed, who was born in Scotland, moved to the U.S. at age 3, went to Brown University in Rhode Island for her undergraduate studies and then on to U-M. “At 31, I am currently living in my 27th house. So I’ve gotten quite good at packing and moving,” she said. She originally came to Michigan to get dual degrees in public policy and social work. But she soon realized that the intersection of public policy and public health “spoke to my real interests and passions.” During her second year at U-M, Ahmed was looking for funding for a public health internship and talked to several friends at the Ross School of Business. They spoke highly of WDI and its support for students – particularly those pursuing innovative collaborations or projects. “From the start, the team at WDI was extremely supportive, professional and enthusiastic,” noted Ahmed. “It felt like a perfect match for me.” Her 2008 WDI-supported internship was with a group called Peacework based in rural, southwestern Cameroon along the Nigerian border. Working through a local partner, United Action for Children, Ahmed’s primary job was to assess the local public health capacity. She used information on the burden of disease, demand for services, availability of resources and other factors to develop a plan to revitalize health clinics that had lost their funding due to donor withdrawals. For her work, she explored several models, including community-based financing and public- private partnerships. She interviewed dozens of patients and providers, and visited 20 health clinics, often walking from village to village because the roads were washed out. It was not unusual for her to spend several days at a stretch in a single clinic, sleeping on a cot or the floor. The daughter of a physician and a medical practice administrator, Ahmed thought she was familiar with the basics of healthcare financing and The west African country of Cameroon where Ahmed served. 64 William Davidson Institute