I recently had the opportunity to attend the Active Living Conference, which primarily focuses on research around physical activity and initiatives that aim to increase movement within communities and nationwide. This conference took place at the National Institute of Health, in Bethesda, Maryland, which is home to cutting- edge biomedical research. Bethesda is a well-developed city outside of DC, located in Montgomery County, a county that I have called home for over a decade now. Needless to say, I was honored and ecstatic to be a part of the synergy in this space and witness the beauty of intersectionality across multiple professions. At this conference, I was pleasantly surprised to find a diverse range of working professionals, including but not limited to landscape architects, epidemiologists, students, public health professionals, physicians and researchers. This unique junction led to innovative and exciting conversations that will (hopefully) create meaningful change. As much as I would love to recap all of these exciting moments, for time sake I will share a takeaway that stayed with me past the conference. 

On the first day of the conference, I attended a thought-provoking workshop that exposed me to the idea of community connectors. The facilitators of this workshop work with the Denver Community Active Living Coalition as Community Connectors that empower local community members and organizations with microgrant-funding to enhance opportunities for physical activity and healthy living. The Community Connectors have a personal tie to their community, which creates an interpersonal element to their work. In this workshop, we had a pretend town hall, where each of the ~30 participants were given a prompt that outlined their context as a community member, ranging from parents, teachers, crossing guards, police officers, children, a community connector, a nonverbal person, a translator and so on. In this exercise, we discussed transportation and infrastructure issues that we were impacted by collectively. As a group, we, the participants, embodied the needs of our fictitious community, which led to insightful discussion. Through this workshop, I realized how important advocacy work is and realized that I could see myself as a community connector in the future. 

This eye-opening experience stayed with me throughout the entire conference, priming me to keep an open mind as I soaked up research from all fields of work, using various tools and resources. As a young person early in my career, I am at a point where I get to learn and explore positions and ideas that would have never crossed my mind. Through this conference, I learned that advocacy work, community health and mobility justice all peak my interest. As I mentally transition out of conference mode and back to my fellowship, it can be easy to return to my hermit shell in my own scope of work, but I want to challenge myself to continue conversations of interest. Throughout my fellowship, I’ve been determined to conduct informational interviews. Although I’ve taken a bit of a pause during a hectic March, I want to push myself to reach out to people and learn about what they do and how they got there. The best part about conferences are the connections created, and there is no better time like the present to harness the power of networking. Who knows, I might stumble upon my dream job.