Yale’s home will always be New Haven, but its backyard is as big as America.
Look closely and you’ll see the ideas and hard work of Yale’s people and their local partners taking root in Missoula, Montana; Hearne, Texas; and Milledgeville, Georgia. You’ll find Yale people collaborating with local school districts to organize STEM education bootcamps in the Mississippi Delta and responding to a community need by delivering medicine to doorsteps in Las Vegas, Nevada.
On farms and in factories, at hospitals and across neighborhoods, the work of Yale is traveling far and wide and fast.
But what does that look like, exactly? How does Yale, with its centuries-long history of advancing life-saving medical treatments, developing cutting-edge technology, and expanding educational opportunities, meaningfully affect the lives of people today? And how is that impact manifesting nationwide?
A look at the contributions of alumni, faculty, and students throughout the country turns up powerful results.
Take the startup company Pills2Me, based in Las Vegas, Nevada. The company delivers medications to vulnerable populations, from the immunocompromised to seniors, who might not otherwise pick up their prescriptions.
The app was created by Leslie Asanga ’20 M.P.H. and inspired by his experiences working part-time as a pharmacist in New Haven while taking classes at the Yale School of Public Health. The company now employs thousands of independent contractors (including more than 500 in Nevada alone) to coordinate fast, life-saving deliveries.
Leslie Asanga ’20 M.P.H.
Like so many Yale-inflected stories of change, Pills2Me continues to grow: It’s now making deliveries in 18 cities across seven states, including Illinois and Texas.
Elsewhere in Texas, more than 700 public school students in the small, rural town of Hearne have benefited from their teachers’ participation in the Yale National Initiative, which connects public school educators from high-need districts with extra resources and training.
Teachers from two school districts in Texas, including Hearne, take part in the Yale National Initiative.
Teachers from Hearne have been involved in the Yale initiative since 2019 and say the experience has sharpened their skills as educators. “We truly believe that we have what it takes to change the world,” Hearne Independent School District teacher Debra Jenkins told a local TV news station.
Researchers led by the Yale School of the Environment worked with families in Detroit, Michigan, to study just how much urban settings can influence teens’ engagement with environmental issues; in Mississippi, Yale alum Matt Dolan ’82 leads an effort to bring Advanced Placement science courses to some of the state’s most underserved communities, at no charge.
Providing tutoring in Mississippi.
But impact doesn’t come through research or teaching only. Sometimes it’s about building something new for a community. In Missoula, Montana, alum Sean Patrick Higgins ’16 M.F.A. is changing the way the film and TV industry views the Mountain West. Higgins is co-founder and CEO of Story House Montana, a 400,000-square-foot film studio that is projected to create more than 400 jobs.
The studio is on the 47-acre site of a former lumber mill. “We are listening to what this community of Missoula needs and integrating the community into the vision of the stories that we’re telling,” Higgins told Forbes magazine.
In southern New England, there are parents who can envision healthier lives for their children, thanks to the Pediatric Heart Transplant Program at Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital (YNHCH), the only accredited program of its kind in Connecticut or Rhode Island.
Performing a heart procedure on a pediatric patient.
Since 2019, the children’s hospital has performed six pediatric heart transplants, including for children as young as one year old. “In these cases, we are taking a family who may have felt they were out of options, at their wits’ end, and giving them back the gift of life. It is an honor to take part in these procedures,” said cardiologist E. Kevin Hall, director of the transplant program, an associate professor of pediatrics, and the medical director of the Pediatric Heart Failure and Cardiomyopathy Program at Yale School of Medicine (YSM).
The future of medical care is on the mind of Yale student Jayson Wright ’26, ’27 M.P.H. He already knows how he’ll be using his skills to benefit his community after graduation: He plans to work at a rural hospital like the one his grandmother worked at in Milledgeville, Georgia.
“There is a serious shortage of healthcare professionals in places like my hometown, and rural healthcare systems are under stress,” said Wright, who works in a lab at YSM studying bacteria strains found in hospitals. “In these communities, people are underinsured, yet rates of chronic diseases tend to be higher, and the population of elderly residents tends to be larger. There is a real demand for healthcare access and innovation. I want to be part of the solution.”
That’s the point, really — Yale’s students, faculty, alumni, and staff want to be part of solutions.
It’s why a pharmacist in Nevada is inventing new ways to support his neighbors; why teachers in Texas are learning more to give more; why a student from Georgia is following in his grandmother’s footsteps to offer care where it’s needed most.
You’ll find people like them in all 50 states, including yours.
