Alex Ochoa

• Title: Outstanding Senior Award

Alex Ochoa is a Public Health major with a specialization in Environmental Public Health from Chicago. After a solid foundation in research at Nationwide Children’s Hospital through the ASPIRE Medical Research Program, Alex embarked on a quest to delve into the realm of policy, recognizing the importance of policy in the public health field. Despite the absence of policy-focused coursework in his public health major, he paved his own path to deepen his understanding through the Washington Academic Internship Program, where he interned at the White House with the Office of National Drug Control Policy and reviewed digital media content for the Real Deal on Fentanyl campaign that displayed effective advertising of the potency of fentanyl and the life-saving effects of naloxone. His firsthand experiences with the impacts of substance use disorder, mental health, and health care barriers informed his decision to pursue medicine to reduce the frequency of preventable chronic conditions with the long-term goal of using research to inform national policy.