Enjoy this great chat with UI College of Public Health alumna and 2023 Outstanding Alumni Award recipient, Kelsey Feller. She is bureau chief of Data Sharing, Privacy and Open Records in the Division of Compliance at the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services (IDHHS), where she balances the importance of data security and privacy with facilitating the use of data for public health initiatives and research.

Lauren Lavin:

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to From the Front Row. This week I’m excited to share an interview with Kelsey Feller, who is a distinguished alumni Award recipient from the College of Public Health. In this episode, we chat about her job, advice she has for students, mentorship, and a variety of other topics that students I think will find very applicable to their daily lives. And if it’s your first time with us today, welcome. We’re a student-run podcast that talks about major issues in public health and how they’re relevant to anyone, both in and outside the field of public health.

Okay. Kelsey, thank you so much for being on the podcast. I’m so excited that you are here today.

Kelsey Feller:

Thanks for having me.

Lauren Lavin:

So before we get … Or well, I guess to get started, could you just tell us a little bit about yourself?

Kelsey Feller:

Yeah. My name is Kelsey. I am first and foremost a mom of two little boys. I have a three-year-old and a five-month-old with my husband Adam. And of course, that’s family first, most important in my life. We live on kind of a hobby farm. We’ve got a garden and horses, and just really fun to be out in the wild and in nature.

Lauren Lavin:

Oh my gosh. My sister has horses, so we always grew up around horses, so I have a soft spot for them.

Kelsey Feller:

Yes, it’s wonderful. And then professionally, I work in the area of data sharing privacy, and open records. And I’m here, of course, because I am a graduate of the College of Public Health.

Lauren Lavin:

Well, and you’re also here because you were a distinguished alumni and got an award today, so that’s actually why she’s here. She’s probably is too humble to say it. Kelsey, as we start off, let’s just start with what is your job currently and explain what the role is, that sort of a deal.

Kelsey Feller:

I am currently a bureau chief over the area of data sharing privacy, and open records. So I oversee the spectrum of information sharing out of the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services.

That includes on the one side open records, things that the public can request and that the government must make available. And on the complete opposite side, confidential information which we can never share, and this whole spectrum in between of information that can be shared for certain circumstances and certain situations and certain purposes through certain agreements. So I oversee that process.

Lauren Lavin:

Give us an example, what would be a open record?

Kelsey Feller:

An open record would be minutes from a public meeting.

Lauren Lavin:

Okay. So that’s specific to the Iowa Department of Health, like meetings from those sorts of things?

Kelsey Feller:

Yep, yep.

Lauren Lavin:

Okay. And then what’s an example of something confidential?

Kelsey Feller:

HIV client records.

Lauren Lavin:

Okay. And so then do you get this information from people individually? Is that how you’re collecting it, or from hospitals?

Kelsey Feller:

All sorts of different information comes from all sorts of different places. So data collection is governed by law, so we only have information that we are allowed to have, and it may come … Reportable disease data is an example of information that we’re required by law, hospitals are required by law, to report to the state. We do also have some information from surveys that people voluntarily take. We have information from all sorts of places.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah. So it can come from a variety of places and it looks like a variety of different things. But it’s all housed under you essentially?

Kelsey Feller:

Responsibility-wise, yes. Yes.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah. Okay. So that’s what you do now. Let’s back it up a little bit and talk about how you got to this role. Let’s start with your educational path.

Kelsey Feller:

Yes. I started at the University of Northern Iowa. I am a Panther through and through. I know I shouldn’t say that out loud in this building, but I’m a Panther. Initially I focused on biology. I went through the pre-med path at UNI, and I was planning on doing med school or optometry school, something of that nature. Got a little bit scared by student loan debt and also just decided it didn’t feel right to me, that that wasn’t the path I wanted to go. I really knew even then that I wanted the flexibility to have nights and weekends to myself, which I think is really great when you recognize that that’s something important for your life, because our medical professionals are wonderful and they work 24/7.

I considered genetic counseling. I went to a genetic counseling internship, learned all about that, and was devastated by it. Hearing stories of people who did not have a way to change their health outcome at that moment in time, and said, “I cannot spend my life giving people bad news for which there is no cure or nothing they can do about it.” And that took me to the other end of the spectrum, well, what if we could prevent things that are preventable? And that is how I found public health.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah. So you found it after undergrad, or did you still do that in undergrad?

Kelsey Feller:

It was my last year of undergrad, yes. Yep.

Lauren Lavin:

Okay. So did you graduate with a biology degree though?

Kelsey Feller:

Yes, I have a biology degree. I also have a degree in religious studies-

Lauren Lavin:

Oh.

Kelsey Feller:

… which is my mid-college crisis I call it. But I was interested so I did that. And that came with a lot of ethics coursework, and I think of all of my undergraduate coursework, it’s the ethics courses that I actually use in my job today when we’re thinking about data access.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah. Do you think that that gave you an interesting bent or a perspective to look at your work now?

Kelsey Feller:

Oh, absolutely. Yes. And even in my master’s program, I don’t know if I saw it quite so much, I enjoyed the coursework a lot. But it wasn’t until probably I started my job that I realized that ethics and the ethics of public health surveillance, the ethics of data access, were very interesting to me.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah, I think it’s good for students to hear, one, because public health intersects so many different disciplines, and I think the importance of having other disciplines to shed an interesting lens or light is really important going forward. So if you’re an undergraduate student, or even a master’s student, creating some sort of external or additional opportunity can be really beneficial, I think.

Kelsey Feller:

Absolutely.

Lauren Lavin:

Later on. Something like religious studies, right.

Kelsey Feller:

There you go.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah. Okay. So undergrad happened, and then did you go straight into your master’s degree?

Kelsey Feller:

I did. I had six months off because I was a December grad from undergrad, and then the MPH program started in August. So I had a little bit of time to work and save up some money and pay off some student debt. But for the most part, yes, I went right into the undergrad, or to the master’s program.

Lauren Lavin:

And where’d you go to get your master’s?

Kelsey Feller:

Here at the University of Iowa College of Public Health. I was in the Community and Behavioral Health program.

Lauren Lavin:

Okay. And how long were you here? What were your areas of interest while you were here?

Kelsey Feller:

I did the traditional two years with summers. I could not find my interest area, to be honest. A lot of my peers had their one topic area and they would try to connect every class to something that relates to this particular area of interest to them, and I just studied everything. I was very, very interested in all sorts of topics, and I picked things that others weren’t picking basically, and got a very well-rounded public health background from here.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah. And I think that’s pretty characteristic of master’s degrees, is you’d get a really good baseline foundation to go out into the workforce.

Kelsey Feller:

Yes.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah. Did you feel like the University of Iowa well-prepared you for that? What were some of your favorite classes or activities that you participated in looking back?

Kelsey Feller:

I think one thing that the University of Iowa did very well was encouraging collaboration, teamwork, working together with other people. I think that was the biggest skill that I took from all of my courses on were all of the group projects, the ability to work together, the ability to find strengths within ourselves to say, “I’ll do this, you do this.” That’s very characteristic of the workforce when we’re very busy and we have to divide and conquer. So I think that was a very, very great skill that I learned here.

Also, just the multitasking and the ability to do a lot of things at one time.

Lauren Lavin:

Oh, yeah.

Kelsey Feller:

Being a student and having a family and having jobs and having internships all at the same time really gives you that ground floor ability to manage stress as you move forward.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah. And that’s a lifelong skill now, that we’re both learning and perfecting at the same time. Did you have any internships while you were in school?

Kelsey Feller:

I did, I had multiple. I interned at the Iowa Department of Public Health, and in that initial role I did a quality improvement project related to maternal mortality. We were working on some quality improvement initiatives related to that and looking through some hospital records and aligning up, kind of an audit of some practices and care.

And then from there, I had an internship in oral health, where I was working on some planned development. I did an environmental scan and I did a state oral health plan and wrote out some text, did a lot of writing for them. And then my practicum experience, which I also somewhat consider an internship, was at the American Lung Association. So I’d got a little bit of a nonprofit experience there, focused on tobacco.

Lauren Lavin:

Oh, interesting. So you had a wide background before you found your first job, which can you go through how you moved up to the job that you have now as bureau chief?

Kelsey Feller:

Yes, yes, very interesting. Someone earlier was talking about, sometimes it may not be your dream job, but you just take it and you’re surprised at where you end up. So my oral health internship, they liked working with me and I really liked them. The oral health team was a great first work-family for me. They had the opportunity to create a new position for which I applied and ended up being the selected candidate for, so I got to stay on that team.

And I was the community water fluoridation coordinator, and this was the first time we’d had this position in the state of Iowa. So I got the opportunity to design a program and to really focus on the things that hadn’t been done in the past that could build this program around this great public health intervention that really does touch everyone. For someone who’s fascinated and interested and very invested in health disparities, in eliminating those true population-wide intervention, such as community water fluoridation that really does touch every single person who drinks water, it was cool to be a part of.

And from there, I found someone that I really liked working with because I was doing a lot of data work on the program. And I did get to a point, and I think everyone gets to this point eventually, where I just felt I didn’t have anything left to give. I had really used my skillset well in that position, and it needed a different skillset to move on. And so when another position opened up with someone, Betsy Richie, who I really wanted to work with, I said, “Okay, it’s time to leave and move on to something else.” And there were lots of tears because I have really loved those people, and I still love those people and I still work with them.

So I took a job in data governance and data sharing, just because I wanted to work with a person. And then I got there and I just loved it. And it was just bizarre how quickly it clicked. And I said, “Oh, I found it.” Scouring through pages of law to try to find just the right citation that allows me to have a public health project work out was something that was very exciting to me. And being an expert in something that not very many people were an expert in, that was really fun, to be, “I am the expert or the person to go to for this.” I liked that. So that’s why I stayed in that role, and then I eventually took the unit lead for that role.

Recently, the Iowa Department of Public Health has merged with the Iowa Department of Human Services, the Iowa Department on Aging, the Iowa Department of Human Rights, and a couple other commissions have all come together in state government. And with that, I mentioned to leadership that it would be really great if we could expand our ability to share data and look at this area and broaden it across the entire department. And so they agreed, and now we are going to have a team of seven working on this instead of just me. And so it was then, about six months ago, that I took the leadership position and crossed that threshold into HR paperwork.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah. So you went from one, you, all the way to now you’re going to be leading seven. Are you already or is that team-

Kelsey Feller:

In process, in process. I’ve got two people starting on Friday. I had one start last week, so they’re trickling in. And I’m trying to figure out how to train them all.

Lauren Lavin:

Well, I’m sure you’ll figure it out, but again, that’s a learning process. It’s probably new skills and … Yeah. Okay. So one, was water fluoridation ever controversial? Did you ever have to deal with that side of things? That’s a tangent, but-

Kelsey Feller:

Yes, yes. I think more and more we’re finding though that a lot of things in public health and in government have people that feel very strongly on both sides about whether it’s a good or a bad thing to have happen.

So yes, I did encounter situations where there were questions from the public. I still do in data today. I think by its nature, public health is political, and by its nature, you’re going to have people that agree and disagree with the work that you’re doing. So yes, I did then, yes, I do now. It’s a learned skill.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah. What would you suggest for students who are going to be going into fields that have controversial aspects, which, like you said, is probably most of them, how do you learn those skills? And what suggestions do you have for broaching some of those topics?

Kelsey Feller:

Yeah, that’s a great question. I think understanding that … And always going into situations, understanding that everyone comes to the table, whatever table you’re at, from a different place, from different life experiences. And that it’s less about right or wrong, and it’s about meeting people where they are and having a conversation with them to understand your similarities and your differences.

I think what I would encourage from people is if you can get any communication experience, that’s great. Take courses in communication, learn how to speak well to all different audiences, to people who agree with you and disagree with you, and then go from there. And just being a kind human.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah, I actually really love the meet people where they’re at. I think that’s just such an important … Because oftentimes, especially as experts in our field, it can be really easy to not necessarily speak down, but speak from a place of authority when you don’t necessarily realize where other individuals are standing. And this school, Public Health, does also, I believe, have a class on public speaking.

Kelsey Feller:

Yes.

Lauren Lavin:

I think it’s called Public Speaking for Academics. So if students are listening and want to improve that skill, I’ve heard that that’s a good class.

Okay. I guess one other note that I thought was interesting as you were talking about that, was that you didn’t necessarily know what you wanted to do or what job you wanted to have when you left school. And I think that can be a reassuring thought as students are trying to determine what they want to do. And so can you speak a little bit more how you use different people to find your role or your skillset to find your niche?

Kelsey Feller:

Yes, yes. I think it’s very important to acknowledge that you may not know what you want to do. And when I was sitting in class, my goal was to get a job, any job. And I think a lot of people can relate to that. Hopefully post-COVID there will be more public health jobs, but pre-COVID, finding a job, a job, was just a good thing. That was a big thing.

In terms of people, it really was finding that first person who I feel turned around and offered a hand and said, “I would like to help the next generation of public health professionals come up,” and just latching onto that opportunity for what it was and saying, “Yes, thank you for reaching out.” And then from there, just having conversations.

So I told that first person that I happened to be doing a project in oral health because I was assigned … Healthy People, it was 2020 at the time, Healthy People 2020, we each pulled out of a hat what topic we were going to be assigned, and I got the oral health chapter. And so she just asked me, “What are you working on in school right now?” And I said, “I’m working on oral health.” And she’s like, “Let me connect you to Sarah, she’s working on oral health. Oh, and by the way, they’ve been looking for an intern.” And that’s how that just organically came up is I said, “I’ve got a tiny bit of background in oral health. Sure, I’ll be your intern.” And that happened through there.

And then the next person I met was through an internal committee that we had at the department. I think getting involved in those training opportunities in your workplace, in those informal gathering opportunities where professional development, where you can go, that’s how I met the next person that I followed, is just through that.

And then I would say from there, how I got to where I was, is … How I got to where I am, is that I became a member of our Quality Improvement Council. And through there I found a great mentor and friend who helped shepherd me along my path and really gave me the encouragement so that when a leadership opportunity came around, I went to her and I said, “Am I ready for this?” And she said, “Yes, go for it.” And that’s what I needed in that moment. So I think finding those opportunities outside of the day-to-day monotony of your email inbox.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah. And saying yes to opportunities when they arise, it can be really easy to, I think, push things aside if you’re like, “Oh, is it something that I need to add to my plate?” And sometimes maybe the answer is no, but knowing which opportunities. And it’s kind of nice to have other people say, “Hey, yeah, this is one that’s probably worth your time,” can be really beneficial.

Kelsey Feller:

Absolutely.

Lauren Lavin:

When you’re looking for mentors, I know a lot of students like to have, I mean, as they should, like to have mentors. Do you think it’s important to look for mentors outside of school, or should you keep your school mentors and then once you’re ready to enter the workforce start looking for new ones, or I don’t know, give some insight into that.

Kelsey Feller:

I think, first of all, if you know the type of work that you want to do, seek a mentor that does that. For me, I always knew I wanted to work in government. I always knew that I wanted the population that I served to be all of Iowa. And it was important to me to work in the place where the programs were that were helping low-income Iowans. That was very important to me. And so I knew right away I was going to be a public servant, that’s what I wanted for my career, and so I sought out mentors in that field.

I think if you don’t know what you want to do, I would at least encourage that you find both an academic mentor and a practice mentor, especially for MPH students, which is what my degree is. MPH, being a practice-based degree program, if you do in fact want to work in public health practice, I would encourage finding someone in public health practice somewhere outside these walls, in addition to someone in academia.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah, I think that’s good advice, especially if it was practice-oriented fields. Okay. When you’re thinking about your career, you’ve been through a lot of different steps, but what would you say the highlight of what your career is so far has been?

Kelsey Feller:

The highlights of my career have actually been outside of the data sharing privacy and open records arena, for which I am working. The highlights of my career, I’ve written or been a strong co-writer of three federal grants. And getting those grants has definitely been the highlight, especially when they’re competitive grants and you show up one morning and that email is in your inbox that you’ve been funded.

That has been the highlight, for a few reasons. Number one, because we brought work to Iowa that would not have otherwise been in Iowa. And so I feel a direct connection that I was able to help Iowans directly. And sometimes in public health, when you’re not providing direct care services, you feel a little bit removed. So to know I brought the funding that brought that direct care to that person, that feels really good.

But also to see new positions created, knowing that sitting here, all I wanted more than anything was a job to be able to contribute jobs and for other people to get to work in the field of public health because of that funding opportunity, those have definitely been the highlights for me.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah, really full circle, even for so early on in your career, and I’m sure that will absolutely just continue. On the flip side, have there been any challenges to your job or to your career so far?

Kelsey Feller:

I think a challenge for me always is change and disruption. Maybe I will say going through this merger of our agencies, just having things change in general is sometimes a challenge. Just sitting with change and knowing that just as soon as you figure out how to do something, it changes. I would say that’s a challenge, and that’s going to be true for most people in most fields.

Lauren Lavin:

Right, yeah. Change is very prominent in public health, but probably in any field, we’re always going to have to learn how to adapt.

So moving a little bit more specifically, if someone is looking for a career in government service or at the Iowa Department of Health, like where you work, what would you suggest they tailor their educational path to either opportunities outside of it, like internships or classes?

Kelsey Feller:

I think the number one thing you can do is you can start looking at open jobs right now and get the feel for what areas of the department are hiring. That’s a good way to see where funding is coming in at. And then get your job, align your coursework to that.

More so than that, though, I feel it’s the soft skills that are most transferable, and you get that from being here no matter what course you take, but it’s good to be intentional about developing them. So being able to give a training, public speaking, working with partners, learning different software programs, things like that are going to be so transferable to the work that you do in government public health. So I would encourage you to look through, think through, “How can I develop myself as a professional, regardless of what topic I end up specializing in.”

Lauren Lavin:

I’m sure some students are cringing, but what software programs do you use?

Kelsey Feller:

If you come from the data world, right now Tableau is a big one that’s being used right now. Power BI is used frequently. R and SaaS are both used a lot. Those are the ones that I think, if you’re an epidemiology student or a biostatistician and you’re thinking, “What could I brush up on in my free time,” those are the programs that I would say the data world, my data world, are using.

Lauren Lavin:

Do you use that stuff on a daily basis?

Kelsey Feller:

I don’t use it at all.

Lauren Lavin:

Oh, well, lovely.

Kelsey Feller:

And that’s really unique. For me, I was having a meeting this morning with somebody up in the biostats department and I said, “So I speak data, but I don’t do data, so you have to tell me when I’m speaking nonsense data.”

So I speak it enough to be hazardous. I mainly deal with the legal authorities associated with the data. But for our staff that do use them, the staff that I work with on a daily basis regarding their data access, I would say they use them on a daily basis, yes.

Lauren Lavin:

What does the educational background of the other people that might comprise your team or that you’ve worked with in the past look like?

Kelsey Feller:

Very different and varied. On my team, I have a lawyer, we’ve got a lawyer. We have someone from an IT background who has some specialized technical skills. We have someone with a communications background. We have someone who formerly specialized in suicide prevention on our team. And we have someone who is coming to us from the Department of Revenue, actually.

So you get to public health, the way you get to public health, I feel like in some ways it’s more of a mindset and a way of being than it is a formal educational trajectory, although the educational trajectory really helps.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah. But yeah, there’s again, a variety of perspectives that lend, I think, a uniqueness to the field of public health that maybe other fields don’t have.

Okay, so making that a little bit broader, do you have any advice for public health students, both undergrad and graduate in general, that you would say going forward they should have or think about?

Kelsey Feller:

Yes, advice, I would say pay attention to the world around you and think about how that impacts your professional field. Pay attention to funding streams, pay attention to the politics, pay attention to what government is doing at the federal and state level, and how that may impact the work that you want to do personally. I think that’s really important.

I also think that it’s never too early. If your goal is to be employed, it’s never too early to start looking. Don’t let the process stress you out. Just get started looking for jobs, seeing what’s available, seeing what those job requirements are listed, seeing how you would match up to those, and then developing some additional skills to get to that point.

And then I would also say for new grads especially, when you’re applying for jobs, if the only public health experience you have is your coursework, make sure you talk about your coursework. As somebody who has sat in the hiring chair, it’s great for someone to say that they’ve worked at Hy-Vee for five years, I care a lot more about what you learned in your unpaid coursework than your formal “I got paid for this job” on your resume. So don’t forget to talk about your work here. It matters, the things you learn here matter. Get them on your resume, get them in writing.

Lauren Lavin:

Wow. I think that’s a really tangible takeaway for students. Yeah, talking about that unpaid coursework, or even unpaid internships. I had someone this summer tell me … Because I did an unpaid internship, and they were like, “Make sure you note that it was unpaid when you put it on your resume.” And I had never heard that before. So I think that’s a good tangible takeaway.

I think this will be the last question.

Kelsey Feller:

All right.

Lauren Lavin:

Okay. We ask every podcast guest that comes on, what was one thing that you thought you knew but were later wrong about?

Kelsey Feller:

Oh my gosh. One thing I thought I knew that I was wrong about. I thought that I knew … That’s a good question.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah, if you need to take a pause-

Kelsey Feller:

You’re going to edit out my pause, right?

Lauren Lavin:

Yep, you bet you. And all of this filler.

Kelsey Feller:

That I was wrong about. I can think of lots of tiny examples, but nothing profound, if that’s okay.

Lauren Lavin:

Sometimes it’s the tiny ones.

Kelsey Feller:

I think, for myself, I was wrong about my own potential, to be honest. I think when I started my career eight years ago, nine years ago, I wanted at the end of my career to have the job that I have right now, and I have that job right now. I think for me, I undersold myself a lot and I did not necessarily always have the confidence to think, “Yeah, I could be a leader, I could do that.” And I did that.

I think that’s my takeaway for … Just shoot for the stars I guess. That’s very, very cliche.

Lauren Lavin:

No, I think that’s a really great answer.

Kelsey Feller:

But you can do it, and you can do things that you never dreamed that you thought would be possible.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah, and I think hard work, saying yes, finding mentors, all of the things that we’ve talked about in these last 30 minutes, play into the fact that you’ve gotten to where you thought you were going to be in the end in literally eight or nine years. And it’s only up from here, right?

Kelsey Feller:

I hope so, I need a new goal.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah. We all like to have goals to strive for. Well, Kelsey, thank you so much for being on the podcast today, and congratulations on being a distinguished alumni. We are so happy to have you.

Kelsey Feller:

Thank you.

Lauren Lavin:

That’s it for our episode this week. A big thank you to Kelsey for joining us today. This episode was hosted and written by Lauren Lavin and edited and produced by Lauren Lavin. You can learn more about the University of Iowa College of Public Health on Facebook. Our podcast is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud. If you enjoyed this episode and would like to help support the podcast, please share it with your colleagues, friends, or anyone interested in public health.

Have a suggestion for our team? You can reach us at cph-gradambassador@uiowa.edu. This episode is brought to you by the University of Iowa College of Public Health. Until next week, stay healthy, stay curious, and take care.