Graduate School
Brandeis University

Undergraduate School
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Mentor
Jessica Vonashek, Chief, Economic and Community Development, Town of Norwalk, CT, Rappaport Institute Advisory Board Member and former Rappaport Public Policy Fellow and Deja Moore, Comprehensive Human Sexuality Education Program Coordinator, Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and former Rappaport Public Policy Fellow

Agency
Massachusetts Department of Public Health

Supervisor
Sabrina Selk, Director of Health Equity

Description of Fellowship
Tauren worked with the Department of Public Health and its COVID Community Impact Survey (CCIS) Team on projects concerning health equity and variations of structural violence. She assisted in the development of Focus Group guides for population specific data uplifting the needs and concerns of marginalized populations on the impacts of COVID-19 and systemic inequity.

In addition, Tauren created resources on structural determinants of health for both internal and external use, department wide access, and population dissemination. The resources created ranged and detailed mass incarceration, housing inequity, wealth inequity, food apartheid, education inequity, environmental racism and other systems of violence that cause and perpetuate health inequities. For each resource guide on systemic violence, Tauren provided action-oriented policy recommendations for both immediate and sustainable solutions pertaining to structural determinants of health.