Ashya Smith
Rebecca Copeland Memorial Intern
Ashya Smith is a 2023 Rebecca Copeland Memorial Intern at CHRT. She is mainly working with the health policy team.
She graduated from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill’s Gillings School of Global Public Health, with a master’s in health policy in 2023. She is interested in black maternal health care, health equity, reducing health disparities, and improving healthcare access.
While at the University of North Carolina, Smith interned for Birth Detroit and the United States of Care. In these roles, she learned how to use policy to advocate for marginalized communities. Smith also worked on kidney policy research projects as a policy associate at Arbor Research Collaborative for Health for two years.
In 2019 Smith earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan in international studies, focusing on global health and environment. During her undergraduate career, she interned at the Black Aids Institute as a UCLA Public Health Scholar, worked in sickle cell research in Ghana, and assisted in diabetes and food insecurity research at the University of Michigan School of Public Health.