Hi. I'm Alex Plum. I work for a major healthcare system in Detroit, where I am a global public health practitioner. I might have the coolest job in the world: I get to create programs and initiate research based on the “reverse-innovation” of global health - where I
identify and adapt promising solutions from the field of global health in partnership
with non-profits, universities, faith communities, and other health care
systems in Detroit to implement and evaluate these “global-to-local”
interventions.
Some of my current work include developing an mHealth
intervention to promote care-seeking on behalf of homeless, LGBTQ youth, and examining social support and mental
health outcomes among the same population. I'm also an investigator on global
studies and interventions to reduce antimicrobial resistance (Micronesia,
Nepal, India, and Detroit) and promote vaccines (Haiti and Detroit).
While all of this is awesome from a philosophical point of view, it means nothing if it can't be translated to local communities. This means that I'm busy finding collaborators from across disciplines to promote local health. Some of my local innovations that serve marginalized
populations include an eviction diversion program in low-income
neighborhoods in Pontiac, Michigan; an adapted public men’s story-telling forum
to promote gender justice; an mHealth HIV prevention program to reach homeless,
LGBTQ youth; and a replicable health empowerment and suicide-prevention
intervention in Micronesia, where I was a Peace Corps Volunteer from
2008-2011. For these efforts, I'm proud (::toot::toot::) to acknowledge that I was awarded Emory University’s 2015
Humanitarian Award. In my spare time, I'm referee NCAA and semi-professional
soccer.
Old Bio
In September 2008, 4 months after graduating from Michigan State University's James Madison College, I embarked on "the hardest thing I'll ever love" - I served in the Peace Corps. Assigned to Micronesia, I lived in the Mortlocks outer-island group of Chuuk state, in the Federated States of Micronesia, first on Satowan Island for 9 months, and then my real island home, Moch for 2 years.
Although my assignment was to teach English as-a-second-language, one's "job" in the Peace Corps is as broad as any individual volunteer wants to make it. I served alongside the pastor of Moch's protestant church, advising the youth group and, during my final 6 months, alternating weekly preaching responsibilities. With the help of the other male volunteers in the Mortlocks, I started a summer camp for boys focusing on healthy life choices during adolescence: substance abuse, mental health, sexuality, exercise, & high school preparedness. I advised our municipal leadership on grants, and I worked closely with the school administration to facilitate the successful incorporation of the 11th and 12th grades into the island school.
More important than the "jobs," I discovered, was the identity I lived into through the relationships I fostered on Moch - as a son, a brother, a friend, a colleague, a mentor, and a leader. It was only because my host family and the people of Moch accepted me, worked alongside me, laughed with (at?) me, and related to me more intimately and personally than as an "other" that I was able to have the life-defining experience that I had.
Back in my home state of Michigan since July 2011, I work as Community Affairs Coordinator of the Baldwin Center, a 501(c)3 non-profit, human services agency in Pontiac, Michigan. In my work, I build and develop relationships among volunteers, donors, and stakeholders to help feed, clothe, educate, and empower the poor and homeless in and around Pontiac. Telling the Baldwin Center's story is a primary tool in my effort to form partnerships that build up our work and improve our effectiveness. Although I'm still learning the tools of this trade, I'm already proud of my work and finding value in the human connections I make daily.
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