Dr. Stacy Grundy, who received her DrPH in 2020 from the USF College of Public Health (COPH), got her first introduction to public health as an undergraduate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she majored in human nutrition. 

“My entire worldview changed that day.”

During her sophomore year, Grundy, a native of Hodges Park, Ill., a small, rural community located at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, was selected to serve as a peer educator for the Brothers and Sisters United Against HIV/AIDS (BASUAH) program at the Illinois Department of Public Health.

The program promoted HIV/AIDS awareness among communities of color through education, collaboration and community engagement.

“Through BASUAH, I was selected to speak about my experiences as a peer educator for the documentary, ‘A Mirror to the Heart: Breaking the Stigma of HIV/AIDS,’” Grundy explained. “A segment of the documentary featured a support group for teen girls living with HIV on the Westside of Chicago. As I sat and listened to their stories, I saw a common theme among the group—a lack of sex education. Until then, I had only read about HIV. I didn’t have any real-life experiences with people who had the virus. My entire worldview changed that day. In that room, I didn’t see statistics or risk factors. Instead, I saw young women, some my age or maybe a little younger, who, if they had been equipped with the proper tools, may have taken a different path in life. After that experience, I knew public health was the career for me.”

“Thinking beyond the walls of a traditional office…”

After receiving her MPH in health promotion and behavioral sciences at the University of Texas School of Public Health, Grundy landed in Orangeburg, S.C., working as the community transformation grant coordinator with the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control. She says the position—which involved developing and facilitating things like healthy eating and active living interventions—taught her a lot about community engagement. 

From South Carolina, Grundy went on to hold a variety of public health positions, most of them in the Midwest. She’s served as the health education manager of a Healthy Start program in Missouri, WIC director with the Dunklin County Health Department in Kennett, Mo., (the first Black person to hold this position) and an HIV/HCV testing grant manager for the Illinois Dept. of Public Health in Springfield, among other jobs. 

Grundy’s current position is research assistant professor at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine (SIU SOM) in the Department of Population Science and Policy—a job she was promoted to after completing her DrPH program. Prior to that, she was an assistant instructor at SIU’s medical school.

“During my DrPH program at the COPH, I was introduced to translational research, moving the evidence from research settings to the bedside or the general public,” Grundy said. “Concurrently, SIU School of Medicine’s Office of Population Science and Policy (PSP) became a fully integrated academic department, the first new department in more than 30 years. The PSP is dedicated to understanding and improving health outcomes of residents in Central and Southern Illinois. PSP’s work brings the ideas of epidemiology, community health, prevention and the social determinants of health into a medical school environment. I was attracted to the PSP because the very tenets of the department aligned with my interests and core values. My position allows me to think beyond the walls of a traditional office and connect health with other facets of life, such as housing, education, safety and culture.”

“The COPH is much more than a school.”

Grundy’s DrPH journey wasn’t an easy one.

While working full time and pursuing her degree, she experienced a number of personal tragedies, including the murder of her aunt just a few days before her DrPH summer session in 2018. 

“The faculty and my cohort really supported me through that terrible time. I struggled with whether to continue the program, but Drs. [Joe] Bohn and [Janice] Zgibor were very empathetic and worked with me to make up my assignments,” remembered Grundy, who says her faculty advisor, Dr. Bruce Levin, also inspired her. “The COPH is much more than a school,” she added. “Many of the people I have met have become family. I experienced many family tragedies during my program and I don’t think I would have completed the program without the support and friendship from the people I met at the COPH.”

“I use local community history … to introduce minority youth to entrepreneurship … .”

Grundy takes her commitment to underserved populations seriously, both in her professional and personal life.

She is co-owner of Route History, a museum that shares the untold stories of Black people, landmarks and events along the historic U.S. Highway Route 66 and in the city of Springfield, Ill.

“Through this work, I use local community history and assets to introduce minority youth to entrepreneurship and museum careers, as well as spur local economic development,” Grundy said. She was recently recognized as an influencer by Landmarks Illinois, a preservation group, for Route History’s impact on the state’s historic preservation movement.

“Inequality isn’t going away unless we’re intentional with our speech and our pen.”

Grundy plans to continue her work striving for health equity.

The governor of Illinois recently signed into law the Healthcare Transformation Collaboratives Program, a $150 million initiative that Grundy’s work helped to inform. The program will help community agencies create innovative programs targeting the social determinants of health. 

“The year 2020 taught me many lessons,” Grundy said, “one of those being that while we may have a strong understanding of what the future may bring, we cannot predict it with 100 percent certainty. One thing that I can predict is that inequality is not going away unless we are intentional with our speech and our pen. My plans for the future are to continue to advocate for policies and practices that improve health equity for the communities that I serve.”

Alumni Fast Five

What did you dream of becoming when you were young?

An obstetrician.

Where can we find you on the weekend?

At my museum, Route History.

What is the last book you read?

Does my dissertation count?

What superpower would you like to have?

I would like to have the superpower of teleportation, so I could teleport to a secluded island anytime I felt the whim.

What’s your all-time favorite movie?

“What’s Love Got to Do With It”

Story by Donna Campisano, USF College of Public Health