Tiffany Truong BS/MS’26 finds what matters most at Willamette

Though Salem resident Tiffany Truong BS/MS'26 didn't have to leave her hometown to attend Willamette, her journey here took her far. Now she’s ready to graduate with not one but two degrees — a powerful combination of majors in Public Health and Data Science plus a Masters in Data Science thanks to Willamette’s 3+1 dual-degree program.

“My time at Willamette helped me shape my identity,” Tiffany says. “Exploring classes from across all disciplines has helped me identify what matters to me and what impact I want to have in the future.”

Her courses have challenged her to make connections between disciplines, seeing how a data science toolkit can be brought to solve public health challenges. She’s learned to not only understand data, but to communicate it effectively to an audience.

“Willamette has been a really wonderful place for me to think about things from an interdisciplinary perspective,” Tiffany says.

A collective effort

For Tiffany, the Willamette motto — “Not unto ourselves alone are we born” — is more than a phrase, it’s a call to action.

“It takes a community to make meaningful things happen. A project can be meaningful in its goals and aims but without collective effort, it often falls flat,” Tiffany says. “Every project and experience I’ve been a part of has ultimately shown that it takes a collective effort to support success.”

Tiffany has learned that lesson throughout her time at Willamette. During a summer internship for the Willamette Health Council, she supported the promotion and coordination of Community Health Assessment efforts for Marion County. The internship gave her real-world experience at the intersection of public health and data science and showed her the power of collaboration to serve communities.

As she served the community around her, the Willamette community supported her back. Tiffany found faculty and staff mentors from across campus who believed in her and encouraged her ambitions.

“It’s especially telling that I’ve met a lot of faculty and staff from all disciplines that have supported me and shown interest and enthusiasm in the different things that I’ve been a part of in and out of the classroom,” Tiffany says. “Without each of their contributions and support I feel like I would not be able to have flourished as much as I have.”

Tiffany is looking forward to finishing her Masters in Data Science this summer to pursue a career at the intersection of data science and public health. She’ll also be wrapping up a project with Multnomah County to assist in developing a Community Health Improvement Plan, which will help the county prioritize health initiatives and strategies.

When it comes to launching her career, one of her areas of interest echoes a key theme from the interdisciplinary courses she’s taken at Willamette: learning to communicate with data. From her studies of public health and data science, Tiffany sees possibilities for improving our healthcare system through data-driven storytelling.

“I am excited about finding a way to use data science as a tool to tell stories and understand the health systems in which we work,” Tiffany says. “I hope to use the skills I have learned at Willamette to make quality improvements in public health programming and public health systems using data science.”