Tenacious and Poised to Confront Well being-Care Coverage

Jack of all trades — grasp of each single one. That’s the conclusion I’ve reached about Maira Owais ’23 after having identified her for 2 years, interviewing her for this profile, and talking with these near her. From her time serving as an Affiliation of Amherst College students senator, to her thesis on ladies’s autonomy in healthcare, to her work as a pacesetter of the Muslim and South Asian affinity teams on campus, I’ve but to witness Maira settle for something lower than excellence from herself.

I’m not the one one who has this impression. “She lives utterly,” stated her pal Ankit Sayed ’24. “The issues she does, they’re all carried out effectively: all the things from the way in which she attire to her teachers. That completeness is one thing that I see as the best of how one ought to reside.”

However you wouldn’t discover out about her many achievements and accolades from speaking to her. Maira is likely one of the most humble individuals I’ve met at Amherst — it’s this mix of expertise, indefatigable grit, and humility that has made her a real function mannequin.

“Generally I ponder how somebody will be so put-together,” admitted Sayed. After spending a number of hours these previous weeks studying about Owais, I’ve the identical query.

From Karachi to Central Jersey

Owais’ household moved to New Jersey from Karachi, Pakistan, simply after her eleventh birthday. Karachi was “the very best place to develop up for a child,” she instructed me.

When her mother and father and grownup sister, who was in dental faculty on the time, realized that they wouldn’t discover the job alternatives they wished in Pakistan, they needed to make the selection to go away the relative consolation of their settled life for what can be a demanding and laborious immigrant expertise. However Owais’ mother and father had been older and extra established of their paths, so the duty of really settling down in America would lie with Owais and her siblings. “They had been like, ‘We’re doing it for you guys. It’s not our flip to do something,’” defined Owais.

After all, Owais was nonetheless very a lot in “child mode” when her household arrived in America. “Everybody in Pakistan would ask me, ‘What are you most excited to do within the U.S.?’ I used to be like, ‘I’m going to go to Instances Sq..’” That’s precisely what she did: Certainly one of her first pictures in America is of her 11-year-old self posed with a Smurf in one in all New York Metropolis’s most iconic areas. Then, quickly after her household arrived in New Jersey, they went to go to Owais’ keep (maternal aunt) in Florida —  and so her second vacationer cease in America was Disneyland.

The truth of American life set in quickly sufficient, although. Being a lot youthful than her sister and brother, Owais discovered it simpler to combine into her new faculty. However even for her, life on this unfamiliar, predominantly-white, ultra-conservative city wasn’t all clean crusing.

She remembers introducing herself to her class on her first day of college: “I used to be like, ‘Hello, I’m Maira. I’m from Pakistan.’ They had been like, ‘Hello, terrorist.’” She additionally remembers a college administrator insisting that she would should be moved again a number of grade ranges, assuming her proficiency in English can be inadequate to take care of her present grade degree. (Her mom didn’t enable this. As I got here to understand throughout our dialog, Owais’ mom has by no means backed down from a problem on the subject of her daughter’s schooling.)

Owais doesn’t recall all of this with any obvious resentment. These early experiences weren’t traumatic, she says, as a result of she was in a position to make her personal manner and “make pals with very random teams of individuals.”

An Inside-White-Lady-American-Suburbia Dream

Amherst was not severely on Owais’ radar till very late within the school utility course of. As a precursor to the Questbridge program, Owais was assigned a tele-mentor throughout her junior 12 months in highschool. Her tele-mentor occurred to be a pupil at Amherst, however Owais really wrote the faculty off on the time. About two weeks earlier than she needed to rank her school decisions, Owais got here to Massachusetts along with her mom and sister to tour schools, making a cease at Amherst.

“It was this wet day — it was terrible,” she recalled. “However then in some unspecified time in the future, I used to be strolling round, and I used to be like, ‘Oh my God, this place is so cute.’ And somebody was having a bit of picnic behind J-Chap. And it was like all my inner-white-girl, American, suburbia desires.”

“I fell in love,” admitted Owais. “So I canceled my Williams tour.”

When it got here to rating colleges for Questbridge, Owais’ mom insisted that she put all the Ivy League schools earlier than Amherst. (“I nonetheless have a brown mother,” Owais laughed.) However on the final minute, Owais switched round her rankings in order that Amherst was first with out telling her mom. “I nonetheless don’t assume she is aware of this,” stated Owais.

When Owais first got here to Amherst, she distanced herself from her South Asian, Muslim, and low-income identities. Whereas these elements of her had been tough to flee at residence, Owais defined that at Amherst, it was straightforward for her to “fake that the Questbridge, low-income-student factor had by no means occurred.” She describes her first 12 months at school as a interval of assimilation, suppressing these identities with the intention to match the mildew of what she believed a great Amherst pupil must be.

Being compelled to go residence when campus shut down in March 2020 was a turning level for Owais on this regard. Reminded of her pre-Amherst experiences,  she returned to campus with a renewed sense of self and a resolve to reconnect along with her identities.

“I believe that was a superb progress expertise freshman 12 months,” mirrored Owais. She added, “Now all my time is spent with individuals from (the Muslim College students Affiliation) and (the South Asian College students Affiliation.)” Owais has served on the e-boards of each organizations.

The Muslim College students Affiliation, specifically, has helped her join along with her religion otherwise than she had as a toddler. “I went to the standard Sunday faculty on the masjid for eight years, and there have been some fairly terrible individuals,” stated Owais. Assembly “the eclectic group of Muslims on campus” allowed Owais to separate her faith from the individuals and join with elements of Islam she wouldn’t have seen in any other case.

“Are You Certain You’re Not Going to Med Faculty?”

Owais knew from a younger age that she was within the well being sciences. Her no ash (paternal uncle) is an ear, nostril, and throat physician and had instructed her when she was 5 years outdated that she would make a superb cardiothoracic surgeon. After all, at such a younger age, Owais didn’t actually perceive what this meant, however she “simply sort of caught to it.”

“I’m a really cussed individual,” she stated. “If I say I’m going to do one thing, then I’m going to do it.”

Whereas Owais by no means felt parental strain to enter medication per se, as soon as her mother and father realized that she was within the subject, they pushed her towards it to assist her obtain her objectives. Owais attended a magnet faculty in New Jersey that makes a speciality of well being science. “Going into school, I believed I used to be pre-med for positive,” she stated.

Her pursuits started to shift when she was launched to the sphere of economics, across the time Amherst first shut down because of the pandemic. Analysis with Professor of Economics Jessica Reyes on the consequences of lead publicity piqued her curiosity. She continued to work with Reyes in the course of the summer season after her first 12 months, researching the consequences of Covid on American healthcare techniques.

Getting into her sophomore 12 months, Owais continued along with her biology main with the brand new addition of an economics main as a substitute of the pre-med observe. She admitted that it was tough to inform her mom that she not deliberate on changing into a health care provider; even now, stated Owais, her mom nonetheless asks her every so often if she is bound that she doesn’t need to go to medical faculty.

Along with her analysis with Reyes, Owais’ biology analysis with Jill Miller and Ethan Clotfelter has broadened her horizons past the well being sciences. Owais developed a detailed private relationship with Professor Miller over the previous 4 years. “I took my first bio class along with her, and now I’m taking my final bio class along with her as effectively — sort of a full-circle second,” Owais stated, describing Miller as “essentially the most supportive individual.”

Her analysis with Clotfelter was on the impact of local weather change on fowl migration patterns. Owais and her father share a deep affection for birds, and so subject analysis that required her to take birds’ measurements was a welcome alternative to play with the birds as effectively.

At this level within the interview, Owais started to inform me about a few of her favourite species of birds that she had seen round campus. She confirmed me a video of her household’s 42-year-old African Gray parrot, named Mitu. Laughing, she recalled childhood Qur’an classes in Pakistan. Her tutor would come to her home, and, whereas she would battle and cry whereas studying the Arabic, Mitu would memorize complete pages at a time and recite them. “I might get so mad,” stated Owais. She affectionately joked, “I hated that fowl.”

Owais additionally spent the summer season of 2021 working for Harvard’s Well being Methods Innovation Lab, an expertise which solidified her curiosity in well being coverage. One of many initiatives she labored on targeted on diabetes incidence and care throughout completely different international locations. The opposite, which was “the good factor” in Owais’ view, required her to assist interview the ministers of well being of various international locations to place collectively a publication about international healthcare infrastructure. “Generally I’d get up to an electronic mail that may say ‘Right here’s a gathering with the well being minister of Sudan,’ or one thing.”

“There was one individual on the crew who was a well being economist. I used to be like, ‘Yep. That’s what I need to do,” stated Owais.

She was in a position to pursue her curiosity in well being economics along with her thesis, which evaluated the influence of a Pakistani medical health insurance program on ladies’s autonomy in healthcare.

Saying Goodbye, Trying Ahead

“I believe it’s a superb time to go away (Amherst),” stated Owais. “I really feel like if you’re in a spot for too lengthy, you begin to hate it. I don’t assume I’ve reached that time but.” Nonetheless, she admitted that there are lots of people who she goes to overlook.

“I’m going to overlook having a built-in neighborhood,” she mirrored. “Dwelling in such shut proximity to everybody you’re pals with is simply really easy. Everyone seems to be all the time there with you. I’m going to overlook that.”

After graduating, Owais can be a advisor at Clarion, a healthcare consulting agency. Clarion features because the enterprise administration crew for any pharmaceutical and biomedical firms that focus totally on analysis and growth. Her work can be a mixture of information evaluation and interviews with physicians and sufferers.

“It’s a superb bio and econ combine,” stated Owais, “however I’ve additionally by no means carried out it. Lots of people who do consulting have carried out internships in consulting, however I’m sort of going into it with out expertise. I truthfully don’t know what it’ll be like. However I’ve talked to lots of people (at Clarion), and I’m excited.”

After working at Clarion for 2 years, Owais hopes to go to graduate faculty. “I actually, actually appreciated doing my thesis,” she stated. Over the subsequent two years, she’s going to determine whether or not she desires to pursue a level in well being economics or a joint regulation diploma and masters in public well being. Both manner, her long-term aim is to work in health-care coverage.

No matter this alternative would possibly find yourself being, Owais’ family members believe that it’ll change the world. Certainly one of Owais’ pals, Phillip Zhou ’24, wrote in an announcement to The Pupil, “I’ve zero doubt she’s going to make the world a greater place and assist lots of people reside higher, happier lives.”