A Prestigious Post: Alum Joins Historic Black Women’s Health Study

With a bachelor’s degree and a mission to improve health outcomes for Black women, Guedalia Dalambert is laying the foundation for a fulfilling public health career.

Every day, Guedalia Dalambert meets with Black women decades her senior to test their cognitive health. She scores their performance and carefully reports the data for evaluation.

On the surface, it’s a straightforward task. Dalambert has strict protocols to follow. But to get the most accurate results and maintain the integrity of the work, she reminds herself of the person on the other side of the test.

“Finding a few moments to connect reminds me to have compassion during the tests,” she said. “As public health professionals, our goal is to help communities. We must treat people like people, not data.”

When she was an undergraduate public health student at Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences (MCPHS), Dalambert said she loved digging into the numbers. After graduating in 2025, she began working as a Research Assistant for the Black Women’s Health Study at Boston University, where she sees the real people behind the data.

The Black Women’s Health Study is the largest and longest-running study of Black women’s health outcomes. It began in 1995 with 59,000 participants from across the country. For more than 30 years, researchers have been working to understand the causes of severe illnesses among Black women and why conditions—including hypertension, breast cancer, and Alzheimer’s—are higher among this population.

“I’m meeting and learning about the population I want to work with long term,” Dalambert said. “Each woman has different life experiences. They have their own histories, families, and careers. Hearing their perspectives has shown me health isn’t just biological. It’s intertwined with lived experiences.”

A Woman on a Mission

As the daughter of two Caribbean immigrants and a first-generation student, Dalambert always knew the importance of education and planned to make the most of the opportunity to learn. She imagined adding “doctor” before her name someday.

“We moved from a very low-income, majority Black community to a primarily white, more affluent suburb where there were many more opportunities and resources, especially in healthcare,” she remembered.

She decided to pursue a Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) at MCPHS. More than a title, she was driven by something bigger. “My mission in choosing this field was to open a pharmacy, specifically catering to women’s and Black women’s health.”

Shortly after starting the PharmD program, Dalambert began wondering how the path she chose would lead to her destination. Her dreams of a specialty pharmacy felt far away. An elective course, American Culture, changed everything.

“We watched a documentary about the Red Cross helping families, and I was really moved by it,” Dalambert recalled. “I went up to the professor after class to ask how I can incorporate this into my degree, and she told me it’s an entire field called public health.”

She started meeting other public health faculty members, exploring more electives, and getting excited about pursuing this new interest in earnest. Dalambert specifically remembers meeting Dr. Keri Griffin, Dean of the Center for Research and Discovery and Professor of Public Health at MCPHS.

“She showed me what public health could be and told me about her work in Black women’s health,” Dalambert said. “It was the first time I’d talked to someone who did exactly what I wanted to do, and I was inspired.”

Dalambert finally felt like she was on track to reach her goals.

“I loved all of my classes and seeing different parts of public health,” she said. “The field is so broad, and I liked having the freedom to explore as much of it as possible.”

The Work Begins

After changing her major, Dalambert was determined to collect as much public health experience as possible. She pursued research projects with faculty mentors, volunteered for Operation Elder Connect, and even learned computer programming languages. “Never in a million years would I have imagined liking coding,” she said, laughing.

With graduation approaching, the job hunt began. Dalambert was open to just about anything in the public health realm when her advisor sent her information about an opening with the Black Women’s Health Study.

“It caught my eye because of the population,” she said. “It felt like the perfect opportunity.”

In the fall, Dalambert became a Research Assistant on the Cognitive Health Study, conducting tests on participants and collecting data in the hopes of determining why Black women are at higher risk of Alzheimer’s.

“The tests can be stressful for the participants because they are over 55 and are afraid they’re declining quickly,” she said. “I ask them before the test if there’s anything happening in their life that might affect their performance, and sometimes they open up to me. At the end, I thank them for trying their best.”

Conducting the cognitive tests is just a part of Dalambert’s work. She collaborates with the small but mighty team running the study. Most of its members are women, including the epidemiologists, who had journeys not so different from Dalambert’s.

“It can be intimidating to talk to the epidemiologists as a research assistant, but they have been very welcoming and happy to talk about their career paths,” Dalambert said. “It’s inspiring to be in the same space, learning together.”

A Doctor After All

Four years after planning to become a Doctor of Pharmacy, Dalambert is working to become an epidemiologist. She plans to pursue a Master of Public Health and, eventually, earn a PhD in public health.

She’s still hoping to someday be called “Dr. Dalambert.”

“I’ve already learned so much about what is being done in the public health realm, and I want to learn as much as I can,” she said.

When she first discovered public health, Dalambert struggled with its vastness. Now, she sees a path forward, one laid out by those who came before her.

“It was helpful to talk to my professors and now the epidemiologists about their experiences and how they ended up here,” she said. “I learned I don’t need to have it fully figured out. Now, I’m here, in public health in a way that aligns with what I always wanted to do.”