Moving by degrees to influence public health

Farruggia is a rarity even among the ambitious UB students who pursue a joint graduate degree in law and another field. He recently completed a master’s degree from UB’s School of Public Health and Health Professions, and is on track to earn his J.D. and an M.B.A. this spring.

It’s all in service to his goal: to help make policy in the public health field, perhaps with an international focus.

“I’ve been dead set on having a career dedicated to public service, especially in health and health care,” says Farruggia, whose undergraduate studies were at SUNY Geneseo. “I want to make it my life’s mission to increase health access and decrease health disparities and inequities for people who have been pretty consistently left behind.”

Now he’s taking a giant step into that world with the news that he has been named a Class of 2021 Presidential Management Fellow. The highly competitive program, administered by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, is the federal government’s premier leadership training program for promising recent graduates. Next year, Farruggia will begin a two-year assignment in a federal agency, further developing his leadership skills and giving him the opportunity to leverage his knowledge of health policy and health administration in the policy-making arena.

He’ll bring to the task hard-won experience in juggling demands on his time and energy. In addition to his studies, Farruggia has been an officer and participant in a roster of student organizations in all three schools.

As the semester winds down, we spoke with him about his journey and the personal drive that has taken him to the start of his public health career.

Congratulations on your designation as a member of the Class of 2021 Presidential Management Fellows program. What excites you most about the opportunities the program provides?

This fellowship is going to get me in the door to having a career in public service in the federal government, and I hope it’s going to help me be the best agent of change in society that I can be.

You are currently working toward a total of three graduate degrees at UB – a JD, an MBA and an MPH. Why this particular combination?

The three degrees have given me the opportunity to really experience firsthand interprofessional collaboration, which I think is largely lacking in health care. It’s incredibly important, though, because health care is collaborative in nature. I’ve been able to make all three of these programs work together, and that has been really useful for me.

What is your ultimate career goal, and how will your law degree help you to achieve it?

My goal is to end up in the federal government, or to work in an international health organization like the World Health Organization, doing regulatory and legislative and health policy work. I want to be able to craft and reinvent and rework policies that need to be rewritten and implemented, and also create new policies that will help to effect change.

On top of your ambitious academic schedule, you are a leader in several student organizations. Why is this important to you, and how do you balance it all?

I’ve always enjoyed being involved in extracurricular activities, from middle school and high school on. They give you an experience that sitting in a classroom doesn’t. I’m a naturally extroverted person, so developing relationships with classmates and peers outside the classroom is really important to me. I’ve had to force myself to become a master of time management.

[At the School of Law, Farruggia is active in the Student Bar Association, OUTLaw, the Black Law Students Association, the Latin American Law Students Association, the Health Law Association, the WNY Chapter of the Women’s Bar Association of the State of New York, the Buffalo Human Rights Advisory Council, the Buffalo Human Rights Law Review, the Buffalo Environmental Law Journal and Kaplan Bar Review.  At the School of Management, he is part of the STARTUP NY Selection Committee, Graduate Management Association, Committee on Decanal Grievances and Academic Integrity, and a mentor in the Leadership Empowerment Academy Program.  In the School of Public Health and Health Professions, he participated in the Community Health & Health Behavior Graduate Student Association, and the Graduate Student Association and its Finance Committee.]

Why did you choose UB to pursue your education?

One of my best professors at SUNY Geneseo, Dr. Kristi Krumrine, was finishing her Ph.D. here and she loved UB, and one of my best friends as an undergraduate completed her master’s here. It’s a really great school. I had such a great experience at SUNY Geneseo, and the SUNY system is so worth it.

How has the increased awareness of public health (as a profession and in the general public) due to the pandemic affected what you’re doing right now?

For me as a public health professional, it warms my heart that at least people know what public health is and how important it is to our society. Amid all of the misinformation and all of the fear and paranoia around us, our public health professionals are trying to cut through the noise and lay it out for the public to say this is serious and everyone needs to take it as seriously as possibly.