Running toward the burning building

What I told NYU’s class of 2026, and what they reminded me

May 19, 2026

The night before I left for New York City, I read my speech aloud to Ethan and the kids over dinner. I wanted to double-check the flow and timing, and get myself comfortable with every word on the pages.

I expected my kids might lose interest after the first minute or so, but they were locked in. This was mommy in action, and it was such a cool feeling to see them engaged.

Dylan, my almost-ten-year-old, told me he was “so proud” that I am his mama. Sophia, who is eight, wished she could come and hear me speak. When I finished, Dylan took the speech out of my hands, spaghetti sauce on the corner of his lips, and read it aloud himself. He said he wanted to feel what it felt like. Then they took turns writing little inspirational notes at the top of the page. Keep going. I am proud of you.

I am a homebody. I hate leaving my family. And the Jewish-mom guilt I carry is real, especially in the days leading up to a trip when I am packing in one room and the kids are drawing or playing in another. This time, the guilt was tangled up with anxiety about the speech itself, and the whole week felt heavy. I was honored beyond words to give the keynote, even as I was dreading the part where I had to leave them to do it.

But sitting at that table watching my kids really listen helped. Being a working mom comes with sacrifice, but it also comes with this. They were watching me prepare to do something that mattered to me, and they wanted in.

In the morning, before I left for the Amtrak, a half-sleeping Ethan gave me a good luck hug, wrote a note of his own on the last page of the speech, loaded my luggage into the trunk, and I was off to give the keynote address for NYU’s School of Global Public Health. NO BIG DEAL.

Months earlier, my former biostatistics professor, Dr. Melody Goodman, now the dean of the school, had reached out to gauge my interest in delivering the keynote. I nearly fell off my chair. Dr. Goodman was the kind of professor who is so smart it is intimidating, and I still keep the class binder she put together for us in 2008, the one that taught me probability and odds and the early scaffolding of Bayesian thinking. She has since turned that binder into a textbook, and I now have a signed copy.

I was sure my nerves were going to make me lose my voice. Like I would open my mouth and nothing would come out. Isn’t it strange how we can have hundreds of thousands of followers online but never actually see their faces staring back at us? So when I walked out and saw a few thousand real, living humans in the audience, it felt like a lot.

But the second I got on stage, it all melted away. I felt laser-focused. Excited, even.

Excited because of who was sitting in front of me. The graduates were walking into a field that does not look anything like the one I was promised. Trust in science has been gutted. Vaccines, fluoride, even vegetables… all political now. So I did not write them a “wear sunscreen” list of gentle truths. I wrote them a hype talk. The kind you give people who are running toward a burning building.

So if you are one of them, or if you are anywhere in this field right now, this piece is for you.

Three things I want you to carry with you.

One. Never lose sight of your north star.

You have every right to be angry, disappointed, and even scared about the landscape ahead of you. You are fighting an uphill battle, and you already know that. So please, please never lose sight of why you got into this in the first place. That is your north star, and you will need it.

My favorite question to ask people in public health is, “What is your origin story?” The answers never disappoint, and they always come back to the same underlying driver. I want to help people. Whatever got you there, whether it was witnessing the injustice of health disparities, watching a family member suffer from a preventable disease, or something far more personal that you hold close, you ended up here for a reason.

For me, it was watching my father fight and ultimately lose his battle with emphysema and bladder cancer after a decades-long smoking addiction. When I feel myself getting disheartened, I can hear him in my ear. They just authorized flavored vapes, Jessy. Don’t you dare stop now.

Two. Lead with humanity.

Remember that the mother who chooses not to vaccinate her child thinks she is making the right decision for her child. The same is true for any public health intervention you can name.

We are all products of our information ecosystems, our friends and families, our cultures, and our social media algorithms. We are living in a world that delivers a thousand competing messages every time we open our phones. So please remember that it isn’t usually the person who is at fault; it is the information they have been exposed to. Public health does not only apply to the people who do what we think they should do. Help that mom make a decision based on the best available evidence, and do it by leading with your humanity.

Three. Public health is not conditional.

I recently learned about a term called disenfranchised grief from a documentary that followed the families of three unvaccinated people who died from COVID-19. The families spoke about the shame and judgment they were met with when people learned that their loved ones were not vaccinated. As if they were not worthy of being grieved.

But we in public health know that the decisions people make are shaped by forces far outside their control. By their communities, by their access, by what they have been told, and by whom. That doesn’t change when someone makes a choice we wouldn’t have made. If anything, it is the whole reason we exist.

Our work belongs to everyone. The person who refused the vaccine. The person who didn’t show up for the screening. The person whose family was told their grief did not count. They are still ours to serve.

Unconditional care is not a soft skill. It is the whole job.

To the graduating class of 2026, and to anyone reading this who has wondered whether to stay in this field or whether to enter it at all: please. We need you more than ever.

I am in awe of these students. They lived through a global pandemic. They watched trust in science get stripped to the studs. They saw the field they were about to enter become a target. And they chose it anyway. They ran toward the building.

Public health just got its latest set of avengers. We are in good hands.

The world you are walking into is not the one I was promised when I sat where you sat. It is harder. It is louder. But it is also full of helpers. And now, it is full of you.

Welcome to public health. We have been waiting for you.

You can watch the full speech here: