Brady Rowe is an 8th generation farmer from Hot Springs, Arkansas. Between his undergraduate and graduate studies, he spent a couple of years back in Hot Springs, returning his family’s farm to production while also turning his blacksmithing hobby into a business manufacturing steel cookware.
Brady’s 3/8” inch thick steel pan can be used as a pizza stone, griddle, heat diffuser, a defroster an ice cream slab or serving board, and profits from its sales benefit Arkansas charities that target elder hunger. But as much as he loves his family’s land and organic farming, he decided to return to academia and his longterm goal to make a difference in the world by working in healthcare.
Now a first-year student in the Department of Environmental Sciences, Brady loves the interdisciplinary nature of his studies in public health and being challenged into new ways of thinking by his peers as much as he revels in debate with others.
Building on his undergraduate studies in neuro and computer sciences he chose to study Environmental Health Sciences because so many neurological diseases are attributable to environmental causes. “If we can fix that we can literally save people’s minds,” he says.
At Yale, Brady has availed himself of the opportunity to take classes in the School of Management (SOM), represents the School of Public Health in the Graduate and Professional School Senate and is involved in the Entrepreneurial Club at SOM.
He was also chosen to be a member of the American Journal of Public Health’s student think tank. This prestigious group provides editorial input on content and themes as they related to young professionals and current students in the field. One of six masters and doctoral students chosen, Brady also contributes to social media and opinion pieces on behalf of the journal. He hopes to write soon on how to farm for optimal human health and to pursue a career in medicine that addresses cognitive health for older adults.