Evan Cole was a Population Health Service Fellow in the Division of Health Care Access and Accountability from 2008 through 2010. This month, December 2013, he graduates from the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine with his PhD in Health Systems Management. Evan also recently started a position as the Associate Project Director on Medicaid Policy within the Georgia Health Policy Center, an organization that shares similarities with the Wisconsin Population Health Institute. The Policy Center is housed within the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia.

Evan highly values his Fellowship experience and feels that, in terms of securing his new job position, the Fellowship was equally important as earning his PhD. He is very grateful to the Fellowship program, including Marion Ceraso, Jim Vergeront, Pat Remington, Barbara Beck, and his fellow Fellows. It was an ideal opportunity at the time, and he truly feels like it has played a vital role in the work he has done since the program.

Evan’s advice to current or prospective Fellows is to try a number of different things. Placement sites can be flexible in the projects Fellows work on, and he suggests taking advantage of that flexibility to expand your skill set and expertise.