Today we welcome Dr. Ashley Taylor Repisky, Director of Education and Lecturer at Rice 360 Institute for Global Health. I first met Ashley in the summer of 2016 when we traveled together to Malawi for a month of working and learning with and from educators and healthcare workers there. Ashley was working on finding solutions to equipment shortages to address health challenges in hospital settings in and around Zomba while I accompanied university students learning about education in a village school setting.
Watch the video of our conversation, listen to the podcast and read the summary below to learn about Ashley's work as an engineer, an educator and a global health advocate using her unique blend of deeply rooted values and vibrant intelligence to find innovative solutions to health inequities worldwide.
Homegrown Ashley
Born and raised in the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, Ashley Taylor grew up enjoying outdoor activities with her father who helped her understand the connections among nature and humanity. She credits her family, her faith and a “deeply rooted humility” for helping her to look with wonder at the value each person can bring into any given situation as we rely upon each other to make things happen.
I am a person of the mountain born and bred….. And I think growing up in Appalachia really shaped me in some very profound ways.
One of those ways is the acknowledgement that what each person matters greatly to the wider world.
None of us are lone warriors in this kind of journey of life. We really depend on each other for survival, but also for thriving.
She acknowledges the realities of poverty, inequities and lack of access to resources throughout the region where she grew up as well as how these pervasive issues shaped her interests and commitment to working for sustainable solutions. She knows, too, that solutions to generational poverty only come when communities are empowered and mobilized to put their strengths to good use.
Her doctoral degree in engineering and masters in public health are impressive, but she isn't one to take a lot of credit for herself.
It doesn't matter what degree you have, what your training is, where you've traveled and what money you have. All of these things don't make us better than anyone else…Everyone's life experiences matter. Everyone's perspectives matter.
Ashley with her extended family and husband, Phillip, on her beloved grandmother's porch back home.
Solution Focused Ashley
Ashley has taken her passion for community empowerment and partnership learned early in life into her work promoting collaboration among students across cultures. Global health technologies are a major focus of her work. While not immediately obvious to many, Ashley sees a strong connection between engineering and public health.
For some people it's like those things don't connect, but the way I think about my own work and my own heart and spirit in this work is about reducing disparities.
The specific disparities Ashley seeks to address include groups of people traditionally left out of engineering education, like women, those from rural backgrounds, and low income students. She brings these groups traditionally left out of the field of engineering together to address health disparities around the globe with technology innovations that approach the problems from multiple angles.
My role is really centered on empowering students to collaborate and work together to try to tackle some of our pressing global health issues, largely by focusing on global health technologies. We work with partners in Malawi, Tanzania, Nigeria, Kenya, as well as with partners around the world.
With these partners, Ashley's team thinks about how health and engineering intertwine to reduce disparities. They carefully consider who has access to care, who has access to technology, and how to provide that technology to hospitals so they can provide better care more universally for everyone.
Things in our world right now are not equitable… This is the geography of opportunity, this idea that who we are and where we're born really does matter.
I think a lot about how we move collectively towards a world where we might have more equitable opportunity and we might move towards equity.
For Ashley, the answer lies in bringing engineering solutions to healthcare inequities. She's determined to bring others along in this work to “move towards actions, towards change and to mobilize.”
Ashley's Patchwork
Her work as an engineering educator on a global scale necessitates that she work with people across a variety of cultures and backgrounds. Her natural authenticity, openness and curiosity serve her well in these contexts.
It's a gift to be able to walk alongside and listen to and learn from the stories and experiences of people who are very, very different from me when we are interacting…
When I think about working with people who are from different backgrounds, the first thing that just pops into my mind is what a gift it is to work with people who have fundamentally different life experiences…We each have so much to learn from each other.
In Ashley's experience, the most creative and sustainable options arise when authentic experiences of local stakeholders inform the process of problem solving.
Collectively, when I think about working with people who are from different backgrounds, I think it's a balance of finding that common ground of shared passions, perhaps a shared purpose, then also really honoring the unique stories and histories that each of us bring and making sure that we give space for those and really seek to know those about each other as well.
Ashley with Women in STEM project team members in Malawi (WomEng Malawi) led by co-founders of
Ms. Faith Mzandu and Dr. Theresa Mkandawire.
Changemaker Ashley
The ripple effects of Ashley's work are profound. By partnering to educate women engineers around the world seeking solutions to disparities in their own home communities, a new generation of problem solvers are cultivated with the skills and mindsets needed to tackle pressing issues of equity and access. As always, Ashley places more emphasis on collaboration and connectivity with other Changemakers than on her individual achievements.
It's recognizing again that I am not a lone warrior, but that I can come alongside and align with and work to find the shared passions and purposes with other change-makers. I've seen that so beautifully in colleagues from around the world.
To illustrate Ashley's commitment to partnerships, she offers the video below. Created by one of the student leaders in the Rice 360 Global Health Innovation program in Summer 2020, it's a great example of student innovators and design studio partners in Malawi and Tanzania. Check it out!
And I think this idea that Changemakers are everywhere and for me, it's less about my own work. as a hopeful Changemaker, I'm more about how can I come alongside and help to mobilize and work with Changemakers that are everywhere in our communities.
That Appalachian humility is alive and well in this one!
It's easy to see how directly Ashley's work in the field of engineering and global health directly supports United Nations Sustainable Development Goal #3- Good Health and Well Being, #6 – Clean Water and Sanitation, #10 – Reduced Inequalities, # 9 – Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure, but do you also see that by extension she is working on # 1 – No Poverty, #2 – Zero Hunger, #4 – Quality Education and #17 – Partnership for the Goals? I've certainly missed some interconnections and I hope you will reach out and point them out to me.
I also hope you'll get in touch to let us know what YOU and people you know are doing to realize these Global Goals by the year 2030. We can sure do it if we all work together and take our place as Changemakers!
CHECK OUT our CHANGEMAKER YOU course to help you get started today!
Patti cultivates homegrown changemakers prepared to step into their power and work with others to create the world they want to live in. Get in touch to find out how you can grow the social changemaker in yourself and those you serve with Blue Roads Changemaker YOU.
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Patti cultivates homegrown changemakers prepared to step into their power and work with others to create the world they want to live in. Get in touch to find out how you can grow the social changemaker in yourself and those you serve with Blue Roads Changemaker YOU.
