Lillian Walker remembers as a child when money was tight as the family bounced between low and middle income, and having an injury meant waiting to see if she was hurt enough to be taken to a doctor. Healthcare bills meant struggling to pay for food and other bills. Those life experiences steered Walker toward her interest in public health, not just for the individual person but also for the community.

Walker will graduate this week from The University of New Mexico with a degree in Public Health and a minor in Health, Medicine, and Human Values.

Walker ended up in New Mexico when her mother, who works in healthcare administration, made a job change from Florida. After entering UNM, Walker was pleased to discover the school offered a Population Health program and shifted from a Biology major to align with her interest in healthcare access due to her family's financial struggles.

Her research has focused on health equity, tribal health, and social challenges to Black community wellness, earning awards like the Hulsman Undergraduate Research Library Award and the Outstanding Student Story Award.

“I wanted to be a doctor of some sort, and I knew that I wanted to work in healthcare to help others, because growing up myself, my family was not well off when it came to finances, and we often had lots of limitations around accessing resources for healthcare, getting the kind of care we needed, and just paying attention to what was urgent regarding our health concerns. And I noticed this, not only within my household, but also in my community. So, with others, my friends, my family, and those living in my city were dealing with this, and I didn't know about it in the sense that I do now in population health…”

Walker now serves as ASUNM’s director of Student Wellness and is a Basic Needs Peer Navigator, helping students with food and other basic needs. As Director of Student Wellness, Walker works closely with the Lobo Food Pantry and as a Peer Navigator, she helps students locate available resources to help with needs such as housing, finances, employment, medical needs, and food.

On the road to graduation, Walker juggled multiple jobs along with her classes and research, working long hours and going from day shifts at a clinic to overnight shifts in care facilities to classes in the morning.

“So far, my biggest challenge in pursuing my undergraduate degree has been financial limitations, again, not just from my childhood, but also as an adult now, and being able to afford living needs while attending school full time… This made it difficult keeping up with classes… And then you would think that working that much means that I was financially comfortable, but I really was not. I was even then trying to find additional opportunities for employment so that I could officially afford these needs…”

Walker found the UNM faculty supportive and helpful in finding research opportunities, including an internship project with the CDC.

“This was a great experience, and one of the first opening doors to academic style research for me… I later sought out the Black Research cohort offered through the UNM African American Student Services Program. And through that, I was able to do research from Fall of 2023 to Spring 2024 and this research was around social challenges to Black community wellness. So, this was something that resonated deeply with me and my upbringing and would allow me to investigate the social issues that I was dealing with, as well as the others in my community and place that in an understanding of how that affects our health and our community.”

Walker presented her research at the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Conference (UROC) in Spring 2024 and was awarded an Outstanding designation. She used a website titled Empowerment through Exploration: My Research Story to highlight her research and passion for public health, participation in the URAD Native Health Research Fellowship, and the African American Student Services Ubuntu Research Cohort.

Walker looks ahead to graduate school and possibly a Ph.D., as well as continuing her work on a larger scale to help more people.

“As an epidemiologist, I would hope to focus on the social factors and how those influence the disease progression, disease severity, and hopefully work on chronic disease prevention for minority populations. I'm hoping to either work maybe at the state or government level and be able to impact communities directly on providing prevention programming.”

Walker advised other Lobos to keep their minds and options open when it comes to finding their focused field of study.

“Don’t feel confined to your specific major, and don't turn down or look negatively at opportunities that may not be directly related to the specific title of your program. You may be able to find great opportunities that you like, that are not something you would expect it to be, and that might change the whole career path of what you're trying to do, but in a way that allows you to be more passionate about it.”