Monica Getahun became interested in the field of public health at a very young age. Growing up in a community disproportionately affected by health inequity, she was inspired to pursue a career working towards bridging the gap between care and access. She majored in Biology at Philadelphia University and continued on to complete her M.P.H. at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. During her graduate studies, she identified HIV/AIDS as her main area of interest, spending a month in South Africa to complete her field experience and conducting her thesis work around needs assessment of cigarette smoking HIV positive populations and cessation efforts in a Philadelphia HIV service agency.  

Monica worked as a health planner of HIV/AIDS care and prevention services as a part of the federal government’s efforts to provide services to those under or uninsured and living with HIV. This experience furthered her interest in evaluating the success of public health programs including structural and behavioral interventions for HIV/AIDS, and also pointed to the need for culturally competent evaluation that values the target community's input.

Prior to her experience as a health planner, Monica worked at the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Clinical Biostatistics and Epidemiology as a research coordinator managing project-related tasks for an NIH-sponsored cancer trial.

With a reignited passion from her experiences, studies, and work, Monica is excited to participate in the Robert Wood Johnson Fellowship Program and hopes to cultivate culturally competent and inclusive evaluation methods to determine the effectiveness of public health programs, both locally and abroad.