UC Berkeley Online MPH student profile: Sarah Rahman

Two decades into her medical career, Californian Sarah Rahman realized she wanted to do more to make a positive difference in the world. Self-reflection led her to a teaching gig where she helped teach colleagues about a new electronic health record system. This opened her eyes to how data could help patients with greater impact. Instead of having only 15 minutes to save a diabetic patient’s life, she saw that there are mountains of data of that patient’s glucose and blood pressure levels – and the potentially monumental effect these could have on improving healthcare if someone had taken and analyzed that info.

Inspired, she felt compelled to move from healing individuals to helping populations — through the lens of informatics.

“I’ve followed the UC Berkeley MPH program for almost 10 years,” she says. “They kept evolving it annually with new courses and concentrations. I just had to jump on board when the program went virtual.”

While Rahman is on the Healthcare Policy and Management track, she’s also been able to explore artificial intelligence ethics, biomedical innovation policy, and even economics — thanks to the UC Berkeley School of Public Health’s close ties to the Haas School of Business. An emphasis on interdisciplinary excellence helped Rahman comprehend the various drivers that decide what gets implemented in digital health technology.

“I would say my career evolved during my studies because I was constantly applying these new principles throughout. I recently joined Alameda Health System as the Associate Chief Medical Informatics Officer in January 2022,” she shares. “My interests are focused on how to effectively expand technology and digital health use while also supporting health equity.”