Psychology senior Mielad Ziaee is one of the most impressive and promising young scholars in University of Houston history, having already presented his work at institutions such as Harvard University, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and the Kennedy Krieger Institute. Ziaee, the son of Iranian immigrants and a first-generation college student, focuses his research efforts on food insecurity issues and erasing health disparities in UH’s neighboring Third Ward.

In addition to the Harry S. Truman Scholarship, the Phi Beta Kappa Key Into Public Service award and a variety of other notable honors, Ziaee recently earned the prestigious Marshall Scholarship — and he’s only the third UH student in history to do so. Presented to just a handful of recipients, the scholarship provides students in the United States opportunities to study at noted institutions of higher learning across the United Kingdom.

I’ve come to realize that health care is much more than a doctor’s visit, much more than treating physical symptoms. It’s not just biological; it’s social. I attribute that perspective in part to my experience as the child of immigrants.

Growing up, I saw the challenges my parents faced navigating the American health care system. They struggled to decide when it was worth it to see a doctor, considering the distances they often had to travel to find an in-network doctor who was also equipped to handle the language barrier.

Somewhere along the way, it dawned on me that their experiences were not uncommon. I started asking why, saying yes to a range of academic opportunities to find answers, and eventually landed at a core belief: Health care is much more than physical or even mental well-being. It’s a combination of financial factors, economic factors and access.

So, although I’m a premed student set to graduate this year, I have my career sights set on making an impact at a community level.

My research on Houston’s Third Ward explored and expanded that interest. I started with two simple questions: What does the community need, and how can I best make an impact? Food insecurity is a significant challenge for residents in this area, and at first, I thought a data-based approach could help predict areas of food insecurity.

When we engaged in the work and talked with community leaders, it became clear that there was a gap in much of the literature and research around food insecurity. The problem in Third Ward was not a lack of food. It was that food resources weren’t being fully utilized.

Our conclusion — which we were lucky enough to present to the American Public Health Association conference, the largest public health conference in the United States — was that efforts to reduce food insecurity could only succeed alongside cultural and educational work.

The public health nerd inside me was thrilled to present these findings in Atlanta, home of the Centers for Disease Control, alongside so many (mostly older) peers. But it was also important to me that we developed policy recommendations to that end, aimed at supporting nutrition and health at the community level, as so many of these very smart research projects don’t result in real change.

All in all, that research is a big reason why I’ve become so interested in leadership and community-based efforts. Academic work and social change, it turns out, are one and the same.

I’m thrilled that I’ll get to continue exploring these overlapping arenas next year as a Marshall Scholar, a program funded by the British government that places a handful of U.S. students at British institutions. I’ll pursue a Master of Public Health at the University of Edinburgh before heading to the London School of Economics for studies in the areas of health and international development.

Of course, I intend for med school to be in my future as well. I’d like to help bring innovative new policies to American health care that are backed by data science. How can we better identify at-risk populations? How can we better serve those populations? How can we track our interventions and ensure they’re creating real impact?

Answering these questions requires firsthand experience with patients — that’s fundamental — but also creativity and a willingness to rethink some established ways of operating. As one example I took from my genomics work as a National Institutes of Health All of Us Research Scholars Program scholar, the genetic databases driving research and development in the U.S. are not necessarily representative of the diversity within the American population. That must change, but the solution is multifaceted. It involves outreach. It involves policy. It involves community education.

And then there are the questions we’ll have to solve around AI in health care. It can and should be a powerful tool, but realizing its potential will require a few gaps to be bridged, a few leaders who can not only understand the technology side, not only understand how tech can better serve patient needs, but also grasp and help shape effective policy.

As I build my career, I hope my story inspires other young people to pursue ambitious goals, to go to med school, to explore leadership roles — regardless of their background. We can’t understand the needs of people if we don’t interact with them, so meaningful representation is essential. I take my background as an Iranian, Muslim and Texan with me into every new endeavor.

There’s a Farsi phrase I hold dear: havātō dāram. It reminds me who I’m speaking for and to and puts me in a mindset to serve. The literal translation is perhaps especially meaningful to someone pursuing work as a physician: “I have your air.”