As a contractor for the FIRST program, Selihom is responsible for coordinating the FIRST cohort and supporting lived experience integration at CPCQC.

Selihom brings a background in public health research and volunteering. Her passion for lived experience work took root when she began volunteering as a writer for New Haven Hospital’s Living History Project, where she interviewed patients and crafted written narratives about their lives to foster deeper understanding between them and their care teams. Throughout college, she volunteered in the behavioral health department at her local clinic and conducted research at the Connecticut Mental Health Center.

Her interest in perinatal advocacy was sparked by her senior thesis — a sociological analysis of masculinity amidst the HIV epidemic in South Africa. That work took her to South Africa, where she researched mother-to-child HIV transmission in the 2000s and the political forces that blocked the rollout of Nevirapine, a lifesaving antiretroviral, to pregnant women. The intersection of policy and perinatal health is a space Selihom is deeply committed to, and one that ultimately led her to CPCQC.

Selihom holds a B.A. in the History of Science, Medicine, and Public Health from Yale College. In her free time, you can find her trying a new yoga class, re-reading novels from her adolescence, or dancing!