NCDS News

Cattaneo is in her senior year at Boston University studying Health Science. She first became interested in service through her work at Boston Health Care for the Homeless (BHCHP) as a senior at NCDS. At BHCHP, she volunteered for four years as a research assistant, helped teach technology, and planned events such as painting patients’ nails on Valentine’s Day. Her time volunteering at BHCHP taught Cattaneo that service is all about building relationships. “You are not there to help, you are there to learn,” she said. 

Cattaneo now works at the Grow Clinic at Boston Medical Center, an organization that addresses malnutrition in the Boston area. She teaches cooking classes to families, introducing them to anti-inflammatory foods that can help with medical issues like high blood pressure. Through this opportunity, she has developed a new passion for nutrition, which is now the focus of her education.  

White, a Ph.D. student at Yale University's School of Public Health, first discovered her passion for public health through the lense of Catholic Social Teaching at Newton Country Day. In Religion 11, she read Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder, a book chronicling Paul Farmer’s work combating tuberculosis. Both the book and her Hesed project, working with children in San Francisco, inspired her to pursue a degree in Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases with a special interest in how it affects children. Following in the footsteps of Farmer, White now makes frequent trips to Uganda to study tuberculosis and to volunteer with the students at our Sacred Heart sister school in Uganda, Kangole Girl’s Senior Secondary School. She received her undergraduate degree from Washington University in St. Louis.