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Meet Our New Graduate Assistant

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By Devashree Naikdevashree

I am Devashree Naik and I am working towards my Masters in Public Administration with an emphasis in the Health Services Administration at the UMKC Bloch School. I am a dentist by profession and practiced dentistry after my graduation in India. When I was working in a clinical environment, I realized that I enjoy administrating and coordinating responsibilities. I wanted to expand my knowledge by learning different healthcare systems around the world. Therefore, I decided to transition into healthcare administration and to focus on process improvement, performance improvement and quality improvement techniques. I have been involved in healthcare and educational initiatives for women in tribal and underprivileged areas of Maharashtra state in India alongside my mother who is a doctor and an educator herself.

I am really excited to start working on unique projects for the Women’s Center that are focused on creating gender neutrality and the empowerment of women at UMKC and the surrounding communities. This is my first job in the U.S. and I feel really happy that it has such a great combination of community outreach, relationship building, collaborating with different university departments, communicating with different people and understanding diverse cultures.

This is my third year in Kansas City and first year at the UMKC. People of KC and UMKC have been really generous and friendly towards me and my husband. I am loving every day of my student life and being part of this world. I love reading books and I like them in paperback. In my free time I like growing vegetables in my small patio garden and cooking food for my friends and family. I look forward to learning the ways to de-stress by engaging in healing art and discussions at the Women’s Center.

My career goal and vision is to start an entrepreneurial venture that serves as an idea generating incubator to reduce overall inequities of health through collaboration with academic experts and policy makers. And I believe this GA position will provide me the opportunity and experience that takes me a step closer towards my career objective of working in an environment which strongly supports gender equality.