{"id":27623,"date":"2026-11-02T22:11:39","date_gmt":"2026-11-02T22:11:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/11\/02\/labor-of-love-university-of-south-carolina\/"},"modified":"2026-11-02T22:11:39","modified_gmt":"2026-11-02T22:11:39","slug":"labor-of-love-university-of-south-carolina","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/11\/02\/labor-of-love-university-of-south-carolina\/","title":{"rendered":"Labor of Love – University of South Carolina"},"content":{"rendered":"

 When Ebony Christie discovered the career path to which she would dedicate her life, there was no \u201ceureka!\u201d moment. It wasn\u2019t something the first-generation college student planned on as a child \u2014 though faith has guided her from day one. There was no bulb dinging<\/em> to life over her head. No vision by way of dream.
No, Christie found her passion for maternal health \u2014 particularly in lowering the higher-than-average mortality rates<\/a> for Black pregnant women in South Carolina, according to the S.C. Department of Public Health \u2014 because of hard work, scholarship and volunteering while an undergraduate student at the University of South Carolina.
Now at Emory University earning her master\u2019s in public health before going to medical school, Christie credits mentors at USC for nurturing her curiosity and heart for service. It\u2019s all paving the way for her to become a doctor of Obstetrics and Gynecology (OB-GYN) and an Epidemiologist.
\u201cEven though there were so many times where I wasn’t sure I was doing the right thing or wasn’t doing the right major, I still gave it my best,\u201d the South Carolina native says. \u201cAnd things worked out the way that they were supposed to.\u201d
Christie was born in Charleston and raised in Columbia by her grandparents. She came to USC as a journalism major \u2014 she\u2019d written for her high school newspaper and wanted to \u201cgive voice to the voiceless.\u201d
It wasn\u2019t the right fit, so Christie started to look for a new path. \u201cI went from biology to English back to biology,\u201d the 2026 graduate recalls.
Christie ultimately landed on pre-med and started volunteering at The Free Health Clinic in Columbia. It was there, in conversation with her peers, Christie first considered public health<\/a>.
\u201cI ended up trying out public health and it felt like a really good fit,\u201d she says.
During her junior year, Christie took \u201cIntro to Health Promotion and Behavior.\u201d One of the projects was to create a plan to address a public health concern in South Carolina.
Call it divine guidance, call it kismet, but what Christie discovered in her research changed her life.
\u201cFor some reason \u2014 I really don’t even know \u2014 I just did a quick search about Black maternal health,\u201d she recalls.
She found an article from The Post and Courier<\/em><\/a>, a Charleston-based daily newspaper that\u2019s published several articles on the state\u2019s higher-than-average mortality rates for Black mothers and their babies, particularly in the low-income stretch of the state along Interstate 95, often called the \u201cCorridor of Shame.\u201d<\/a>
\u201cI read it and I was just completely hooked,\u201d Christie says of the reporting. \u201cThat’s kind of what started everything.\u201d
Once Christie found her path, she charged forward. Full steam ahead.
Her final three semesters were filled with community projects, including helping the city of Columbia mark its first-ever Black maternal health week and platforming the issue while competing in the Miss Gamecock pageant.
Raising awareness soon evolved into research.
The summer before her senior year, Christie was paired with Daniel Cooper, assistant professor of psychology, and researched \u201cPerceived Discrimination in Expectant Black Mothers\u201d as part of the Dr. Ronald E. McNair Program Post-Baccalaureate program<\/a>. The undergraduate initiative connects first-generation students in the TRIO program with a faculty mentor so the student can conduct research. The program is designed to support first-gen students who wish to pursue doctoral studies.
Christie worked with Tegia Coleman-Rochester during her undergraduate career to develop her research and presentation abilities. Coleman-Rochester, assistant director of TRIO and director of the McNair Scholar Program, witnessed Christie\u2019s growth from an exceptional student into a skilled researcher and presenter.
\u201cOne of the biggest things that I saw her develop was her academic confidence,\u201d Coleman-Rochester says. “She already had great grades, but her research and presentation skills continued to excel. Her hard work and dedication earned her the opportunity to present her research at Brown University and Yale University.\u201d
Not only was Christie\u2019s recognized as a top undergraduate researcher, but her presentation of the findings snagged the attention of Prisma Health OB-GYNs, who happened to be in the audience when Christie was honored for her work.
That meeting led to a two-week shadow program for Christie, who got to see firsthand how OB-GYNs care for expectant mothers in a hospital setting.
\u201cI was still pre-med, still thinking I wanted to be an OB-GYN, but I think that experience really solidified that for me,\u201d Christie says.
Experience, research and awareness (Christie was also a member of the Arnold School\u2019s Maternal and Child Health Student Association) helped solidify her path to becoming an OB-GYN, but what about the systemic public health issues regarding Black maternal health that started it all?
That\u2019s where graduate school comes in.
Christie is in the second year of a master\u2019s in public health at Emory University. Ultimately, she hopes to earn both an M.D. and a Ph.D. in Epidemiology, combining her interests in medicine and research to address public health issues. \t <\/p>\n

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 \u201cThe way we go about communicating information to different channels, you have to be super creative about it. Simply writing a research paper and getting published into a journal won’t reach a person in your neighborhood or a community down the street that’s getting neglected.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>

Ebony Christie<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

 \u201cThe way we go about communicating information to different channels, you have to be super creative about it. Simply writing a research paper and getting published into a journal won’t reach a person in your neighborhood or a community down the street that’s getting neglected.\u201d
What she\u2019s learning in graduate school will help translate the needs she finds in medical school to the audiences who need to hear it most.
 \u201cThe way we go about communicating information to different channels, you have to be super creative about it,\u201d she says. \u201cSimply writing a research paper and getting published into a journal won’t reach a person in your neighborhood or a community down the street that’s getting neglected.\u201d
For Coleman-Rochester, Christie represents the type of USC student who will change the world \u2014 not because of her grades or her research findings, but because of the drive, the grit and the adaptability it took to obtain those things.
\u201cFor many first-generation college students, it comes down to drive and determination. You may not have access to the same resources or background as some of your peers, so you have to be adaptable. You have to want more and be willing to do more to create opportunities for yourself,\u201d Coleman-Rochester says. \u201cEbony is definitely that kind of person.\u201d
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTopics: \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tStudents<\/a>, Academics<\/a>, Research<\/a>, Undergraduate Admissions<\/a>, Diversity<\/a>, Student Voices<\/a>, Arnold School of Public Health<\/a>, Meant To Be USC<\/a><\/p>\n

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 When Ebony Christie discovered the career path to which she would dedicate her life, there was no \u201ceureka!\u201d moment. It wasn\u2019t something the first-generation college student planned on as a child \u2014 though faith has guided her from day one. There was no bulb dinging to life over her head. No vision by way of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27624,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27623\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}