CHET Spotlight: Maria Rockett
Maria Rockett, MA, is a graduate research assistant in the Center for Health Equity Transformation and a first year PhD student in sociology at the University of Kentucky. Maria graduated from Northern Michigan University with a Bachelor of Science in environmental science, where she focused on environmental justice issues such as the Flint water crisis. After graduating from Northern Michigan University, Maria missed having a community connection and returned to her hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio. While in Cincinnati, she served in the AmeriCorps program, where she was placed in a high school counseling office. This allowed her to gain experience outside of her degree and inspired her to earn her Master of Mental Health Counseling from the University of Cincinnati. After obtaining her master’s degree, Maria worked as a counselor for one year in a rural community outside of Cincinnati, all while continuing her research on environmental justice and community engagement in a lab at the University of Cincinnati. After working as a counselor for one year, Maria decided to bring together her interests and enter the sociology PhD program at UK. Maria has been interested in health equity since she began working on her undergraduate degree, and her experience working in underserved communities as a mental health counselor allowed her to see how health equity affects entire layers of community.
Maria became a graduate research assistant with UK’s Center for Health Equity Transformation because it allowed her to work with a collaborative, interdisciplinary team and create a network with various programs, organizations, and communities. Through her work with CHET, Maria hopes to gain experience working with researchers from different fields and backgrounds that can help her learn about new aspects of health equity research and participate in community-based health equity research initiatives. Maria also hopes to contribute her community engagement experience to help to bridge the gap that often exists between research and issues that are most important to members of the community. Maria believes that CHET will advance the vision of health equity at UK and beyond because the collaborative nature adopted by CHET researchers will put the mission statement into practice.
Maria states, “In academia, it’s easy to get siloed into our own specific field and focus. This is why it’s important to have a place like CHET, where like-minded, passionate people can come together for a common goal and create a network that can connect directly with communities.”
Interview and Transcription by Haley Shepherd