Savannah Jane O’Brien

Savannah earned a BS in biology with distinction and honors, a BA in women’s and gender studies with distinction, and a minor in chemistry. At Carolina, she was the president of UNC’s student branch of Saving Mothers, a national nonprofit that aims to eradicate maternal deaths globally. She served her local community as a volunteer doula, providing emotional and physical support during labor and postpartum. She’s very passionate about reproductive justice and healthcare, and she wrote her women’s and gender studies capstone project on providers’ understandings of queer patient needs during fertility treatment. During her junior and senior years, she researched the role of the protein ZDHHC5 during cardiac development in the Edwards Lab. During a stop-out semester before junior year, she completed her Covid-delayed NOLS course sailing in Mexico and worked on a goat farm in Oregon.