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Aman Chopra: Folks, welcome back to another episode of the "I AM GPH" podcast. And as you all know, we have had countless guests that have gone global influence policy in the United States and even helped world issues. But today's guest is someone that took our journey at GPH and influence policies in the UAE, United Arab Emirates. Priya Kanayson is a masters of public health graduate from NYU GPH from back in 2014, and is currently a global public health policy and advocacy specialist who currently resides in Abu Dhabi, where she is a founding member of the Women in Global Health Organization of the UAE, and she's a director of advocacy and communications at the Global Institute of Disease Elimination, AKA, GLIDE that a lot of you past listeners might have heard of. We cannot wait to hear about her journey and she's one of our own superstars here at GPH, Priya Kanayson. Welcome to the "I AM GPH" podcast. We're glad to have you here.
Priya Kanayson: Thank you. Thank you so much, Aman. Thank you for having me. I'm really excited to have this conversation with you.
Aman Chopra: So, you know, you're truly global and a lot of people come in and they do something in an international country, but they come back to the US. Or they're influencing international policy with WHO, UN in the US that has an impact on world dynamics. Recently we've been starting to speak to guests that live in international countries but started in GPH. I'm curious to know what got you to the UAE?
Priya Kanayson: Sure. The short answer is keeping a network. The long answer is a little bit of willingness to jump off a cliff and step into the unknown 'cause I was doing exactly what you talked about. You know, I was living in New York after NYU, after GPH. But before it was GPH, it was just a program, master's program before we even had the School of Public Health, and was working, leading policy and advocacy for chronic disease, UN-focused, WHO-focused. And I was getting to that point where I was like, you know, I love what I do, but I feel like I want a different measure of success than a few lines in a UN document, which is internationally agreed but not legally binding. And it was what, 2019, end of 2019. Obviously on the cusp of COVID, didn't know that. And ended up connecting with my old boss from UNAIDS when I was interning there while I was at NYU. And he sort of said, "Hey, I'm going to set this thing up. I'm gonna call you in a few months. If you're interested, we'll talk." And I was like, okay, so you know, I'm applying all of this. And then May, 2020 I get a call from him. He is like, "I'm setting up this global health institute in Abu Dhabi. I think you would be really good to help me start it up in terms of the strategy direction, but then also the policy advocacy communications angle." And I thought, "Sure, I don't know much about this region". I had previously been a few times to Sharjah, which is one of the seven Emirates, to do a forum there, but really didn't know much. And was coming in, I would say sort of with the Western perceptions of the Middle East and not really understanding much about it. And my thought process literally was, "Well, if I hate it, I can leave and if I like it, I can stay." And I thought, "What's the worst that can happen is I don't like it and I leave." And that's how I've ended up here. And I love it. Honestly, I think it's one of the best decisions I've made.
Aman Chopra: What do you love about it so much that you didn't expect? So, you know, everyone that moves to the US is fighting to stay in the US, "I want to stay here." And then here we're hearing a story where "I'm back, I'm in this country, I didn't know what to expect. It was a risk and I really love it. I don't even think about going back to the US." Where does that come from?
Priya Kanayson: I think a few factors. One is the quality and the standard of living and the safety, I think it's unparalleled. It's the safest place I've ever been, visited or lived in my entire life. And the other I think is this element of innovation and trying to do good in the world, which I think goes into this deeper ethos, as I've learned over the past few years living here, that really came from the founding father of the UAE, was Shaikh Saeed, which was the one based in Abu Dhabi who brought all the Emirates together and all the sheikhs together to create the UAE 50-ish years ago. And it sort of runs deep in the culture here of wanting to do good, and that's how I ended up at GLIDE really. And the idea being to build a global health hub that sits outside of New York or London or Geneva or Atlanta or Seattle, which are the current hubs. And it's this discussion in global health and development of globalizing global health and trying to really take the discussions out of the Global North actors, which are the traditional donors, the Scandinavians, the British, the Americans, and then bringing it more to where a lot of these diseases are endemic and really prevalent. And I thought that was such an interesting way of doing things. And it's not very often you get to be part of building something from the start. You normally join an institute or an organization that's got decades of baggage and ways of doing things, and you can only be innovative in so many ways within your box, but here I think it was just the newness and the ability to do anything, within some limits. But yeah, it's been really a journey.
Aman Chopra: Yeah, it's an incredible opportunity. What comes to mind is, you mentioned the first thing, safety, quality of life. People, at least the people around me, when they think of the UAE or even the very wealthy Gulf countries, if you will, we think of this utopic life. Everything's organized, everyone has a great quality of life. When we think of the US, there's countless public health concerns everyone can come up with from the top of their head. What are the concerns that are happening in the UAE right now that makes someone like you even move there and take on these big challenges? What are the challenges in public health over there?
Priya Kanayson: Yeah, absolutely. So I think one thing to clarify before we go into that is that, while we're based here, we work at globally. So a lot of the diseases that we work on, like malaria, polio, some neglected tropical diseases are not here in Abu Dhabi or even the UAE, but it's really serving as a geographic connecting point for Africa, Asia, Europe, and then the Middle East as well. But I think if we're looking here in the UAE, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, et cetera, and even the Gulf, there's an increase of dengue due to climate change, so vector-borne diseases, mosquitoes here. There's the potential for reintroduction of malaria. And the UAE actually eliminated malaria in 2007. But because there's so much travel, so much migration, people can bring mosquitoes with them. Climate change, mosquitoes are going to higher latitudes and altitudes than we've seen them before, or they're going back to places. So I think we're looking a lot at that there. And I think a lot of the challenges here are due to migration and just the fact that 80% of the population were expats, regardless of what level of work you're doing, 80% of the population in the UAE are not from here. So there's a lot of travel, and then the diseases that come with that, a lot of them infectious diseases. So there's quite a strong program here in terms of public health. And I mean, you even look back to COVID, like I was in New York when COVID hits, and then I moved to Abu Dhabi mid-2021. So things were starting to lighten up a little bit, loosen up, but the UAE was still, and Abu Dhabi I think was still really clear about wanting to make sure everything was really under control. And you felt like everyone, there was much more of a community mindset of looking out for each other versus Americans, I mean, we are so individualistic about our own freedoms to a fault, I think. But here it was like, right, for the greater good, we will all comply. And I think that was something that was just such a different way of approaching things, having been in the thick of it, going from New York into the UAE.
Aman Chopra: I find it very interesting that a vector-borne disease or a disease because of mosquitoes can happen in a desert.
Priya Kanayson: Yes, so, you know, when I moved I thought I was moving, like you said, to the desert, it was gonna be dry and hot. I grew up in California, dry heat. I was like, "I can handle dry heat." The UAE is humid, so like almost entirely surrounded by water, it is very humid. And also with climate change, there's some elements of cloud seeding, but I think a lot of it is changing climate-
Aman Chopra: Can you explain this, this thing called cloud seeding? What is that?
Priya Kanayson: Cloud seeding, yeah. So it's when the meteorologists here and the climate scientists realize that they need some rain. It helps reduce the heat as well. So they go up and sort of put water into the atmosphere and induce rainfall, but-
Aman Chopra: Oh, okay.
Priya Kanayson: Yeah, so it's really cool. And they do this in a lot of places actually where they need rain or where they've been experiencing drought. But I think cloud seeding, I think people give too much attention to it in terms of changing climate. Like a few months earlier this year we had really intense rain, and it wasn't just in the UAE, it was in Qatar, it was in Saudi, it was in quite a few places. And that's not cloud seeding, that's just changing climate. But because of that, you're seeing more mosquitoes congregating, right? 'Cause mosquitoes love still water. They love humidity, which we hate. And so yeah, they're there. And so the public health campaigns here are really impressive. You know, they're on social media, they're on TikTok, they're on Snapchat 'cause people love Snapchat and Instagram on the radio talking about how to keep yourselves and your environments mosquito free as much as possible and not invite the mosquitoes to come congregate in your backyard.
Aman Chopra: I find that's... For folks, by the way, for anyone listening this far, we have an entire podcast on vector-borne diseases with our guest Yesim Tozan. I'll put that in the description so you can check that out to supplement what Priya has been sharing right now. Priya, I'm curious to know, let's go back to back in the day over a decade ago now. What got you to GPH? What got you to NYU?
Priya Kanayson: Yeah, so yeah, back in the day. So I was, like many people, I think, I was pre-med. I was gonna be a doctor, and that's what I wanted. And to put any cultural perceptions behind, my parents did not want me to be a doctor. That was entirely me. And after my undergrad, I took a year off. I worked in my uncle's hospital in India and I absolutely loved it. I loved the hands-on element. But what I didn't want was a lot of the programs in the US at the time were very treatment oriented, and I wanted to look more at the determinants of health and the environments in which we live, work, and play. And those are really what determine whether we're healthy or not. And so I decided to make a switch from individualized healthcare to broader systems and looking at the policies that shape our lives and what informs our health and those determinants. And so I decided to do an MPH to help me get more of that policy lens, so taking more of the science background into the policy. And I applied to a bunch of schools, and New York and NYU, even though at the time there was no School of Public Health, it was very nascent, it was early days, I think, and maybe this is a trend in my life now that I'm thinking about it. I saw the opportunity, and I think I liked the idea also of being able to kind of mix and match at the time. So I took a lot of economics, health economics courses, for example, to help build out my MPH and what I wanted in terms of electives to make it be what I wanted it to be. And also there was a little bit of, "Well, eventually I wanna do some work with the UN, and I wanna intern there." And NYU is in New York and the UN is in New York, so it's perfect. And it ended up working out, which was great.
Aman Chopra: Did anything in your direction surprise you when you joined NYU? So it seems like you were very set, you know, you worked in India for one year at your uncle's hospital and then all of a sudden you had this epiphany moment like, "Oh, I really wanna do this" and that got you to NYU. So you have a goal or a mindset. Did that change when you came to NYU?
Priya Kanayson: I don't know that it changed. I think, well, I think a few things maybe because I wasn't exactly sure what level of policy I wanted to be at. Like did I wanna do research? Did I want to be working at the city level, at the government level? Like, I think the levels were where I was not so sure. I did do some research there. At the time we had CHIBPS, which was the Center for Health Identity Behavior and Prevention Studies run by Perry Halkitis, who's no longer there. And there's a few others, Dr. Danielle Ompad was there as well, Dr. Kapadia, Farzana Kapadia. So quite a few of NYU GPH current and former professors. And that was really interesting work. But for me, I was like, okay, the research to policy is not where I wanna sit. So I think for me, I tried a lot of things to see what I liked and then what I didn't like to start ruling things out. And what I really liked was looking at more of the global regional level policy setting, at the norm setting, and how that can then be used to influence at the national level or sub-national level. And so I really liked that element of it. And I think one of the things I really liked as well was trying to understand health policy and how it's influenced by economics, a lot by economics, by geopolitics, and looking at that angle as well to understand the levers that you can pull to influence and implement change.
Aman Chopra: So this, I've heard a few things that sound very high level, you know, like economics and global, global, global is a word that I keep hearing from you right now. So that's been from a long time. It seems like rather than going very specific into the weeds of things, you are thinking very high level and managerial. It's almost like a business mindset. Did you see that influencing your decisions in the roles you took after you graduated?
Priya Kanayson: You know, at the time I don't think so, but when I look back and reflect on it, yes. So my first job after NYU was for a very small NGO. I was one of two people in New York and eventually the only one in New York before I hired someone else. And so there was lot of latitude and leeway to run with things and make my own decisions and be in an environment where I was trusted so that I could just go with it and sort of direct and have the strategy, have the oversight and build the network and relationships that I needed in order to deliver. And I think that's definitely something that even with NYU, I sort of built what I wanted out of it and had that latitude and wasn't fixed to a very closed or set curriculum, which I enjoyed, and I think that works for me. And I think a lot of the roles and things that I've done since probably emulate that and mimic that, and I tend to thrive in those kinds of environments, I think.
Aman Chopra: Yeah, when I was looking you up, the words that came to my mind were superstar, boss girl, to make it very, you know, colloquial and general to the... You're doing a lot of things, you are influencing policies, you are in leadership positions. How does one even, so perhaps not how does one end up there. Tell me, take me to a day in the life of what is it like being you on a daily basis? You are in two organizations at high-level positions. What is that like?
Priya Kanayson: Yeah, so one of them is entirely volunteer. It's like informal, so that's the Women in Global Health chapter. Like that's very like I would say relaxed, on our own time. At GLIDE, I'm part of the leadership team there. So that's thinking overall strategic direction for an institute that's almost five years old. It's helping oversee the development of the next five years strategic plan. It's working with funders and board members. And then a lot of my day to day it's managing people but then also being able to like zoom in and zoom out, I think is important. Whether it's how you manage people and adapting your own management style to what someone needs. And I think that's also a challenge and a way to grow because sometimes some of my staff may not all, like the way they need to be managed may not be my natural management style, which tends to be more hands off, and "I'll give you the overall direction, if you need help come to me," because I wanna give people space to grow and do things their own way. But some people need a little bit more check-in, some people need more, I mean it's the love languages, for better or for worse, it's the best way to say it. Like I'm not a words of affirmation person. But I've got someone on my team who needs that, and I need to go tell them they're doing a good job every day. But you see how doing that changes someone's way of working, and you're like, "Okay, well if that's what they need, that's what I've got to do." So it's that, but then it's also thinking how can we have impact, how can I have impact here? Like what do I wanna say that, whenever I leave GLIDE, like this is what I'm proud of doing? And so it's thinking sort of smaller day to day, but the larger long term. But not like 10, 15 years, like next three to five years.
Aman Chopra: Yeah, I got you. I mean, I've never heard a love language analogy from a managerial perspective, at least on this platform.
Priya Kanayson: Yeah, they're all over.
Aman Chopra: Because at the end of the day, it's all humans, and that's very interesting to see. There's something you spoke to me about on email before we started this episode, which was about the concept of a startup think tank, expectations and reality. We have had a lot of entrepreneurs on this, global health entrepreneurs on our podcast that are pitching consistently. What is that? What is your relationship with all of that stuff?
Priya Kanayson: Yeah, so ours is interesting 'cause we were established five years ago, we're funded by the now president of the UAE and his private philanthropy and the Bill, well, the Gates Foundation now. And so completely independent have our own board of directors, but we go through funding cycles every three years. And we started up during COVID. So you think about how to tell a board or how to tell your funders about impact and what have you done. The first three years, kind of hard. We're like, "Well, we learned some things." And we're I think in the stages of an organization we're going from forming to norming with still a little bit of storming. And the other day we're like, not all of it is brainstorming. Some of it is like pitchfork storming when you're putting out fires. But it's also how to find your niche. And so I think one of the things that's been really fun is seeing where can we add value as like a relatively young and small institute and where is our value-add in a pretty large global health ecosystem with some, you know, as we talked about some entities that have been around for decades. So like where do we find our space? And for us, it's like as a think tank, we are seeking now to generate and disseminate knowledge. And that knowledge ultimately is to help advance the elimination of infectious diseases that are set for elimination by WHO. And so right now we're like, we'll start on four, and then we'll see where we can go from there.
Aman Chopra: What do you mean by start on four diseases?
Priya Kanayson: Start on four diseases. Yeah. And those diseases, so malaria, polio, and two neglected tropical diseases, rubber blindness and lymphatic psoriasis, which is also sometimes known as elephantiasis, it's the swelling of lower extremities. And those are primarily because it's where our two founders have been working in. And the UAE, specifically Abu Dhabi, has been working in those four for many, many, many years, like over 30 years, which is, I mean, I never knew. So I think we started off there, we've done a little bit of some other work, but all of it is around research, like working with partners in countries to understand what the gaps are, some capacity strengthening. So we run a course, disease elimination and eradication course, and actually we started doing that with GPH and Chris Dickey and the team over at NYU. And we brought folks over here to NYU Abu Dhabi and do a week long in person. So we've done that for two years. And then this year we did it in Rwanda and Ghana. And then next year we'll look to maybe bringing it back to Abu Dhabi with NYU. And then we do advocacy and really seeking to elevate awareness, understanding, engagement around these diseases. I think a lot of people, like when I first started the job, a lot of my friends were like, "But is polio still here? Isn't it gone?" And no, I mean, it's technically only still in Pakistan and Afghanistan, but we're now hearing of it coming back in a few other places as well. I mean, in Gaza just last week it was confirmed that a child has paralytic polio, so it's not gone. And it just goes to show the importance of continued awareness and understanding of immunization programs and making sure that we don't stop until we're finished. So it's interesting,
Aman Chopra: There's a lot there. There's a lot... Where do I even... There's something that I found very interesting that you said in the beginning of someone that's starting in Abu Dhabi. One would think like global policies influenced in the West, the US, probably some places in the UK, you know, wherever the Western countries have big offices. What I found very interesting is that you sitting in Abu Dhabi influences public policy globally. For those people that don't want to live in the US after they graduate and they want to go somewhere into a different country but still work globally rather than locally, what are some other examples you can give us that you have seen around in the world?
Priya Kanayson: Yeah, I think there's a lot of interesting work happening, not just in the Middle East region, but also looking in Africa and in Asia, Southeast Asia. So I think there's quite a few hubs coming up in Singapore, for example, India as well. There's a public health foundation of India, there's the Tata Fund that was also doing some work in health and in public health and innovation specifically. And in Africa there's a lot. I think what's really interesting is how a lot of this is led by people working in the communities themselves. And so they're really saying this is what's happening on the ground and taking it up through their government levels or working with partners or setting up their own NGOs or working with academic institutions. So I think there's now a drive to say, if you're in a country that's historically been considered the Global South and this artificial divide, that people in these countries are more than equipped to like lead the conversation and influence policy instead of it all happening in the Global North and being told, "Well, these are the priorities that we think our money should go to." So it's this sort of shift in the discourse and how things are done.
Aman Chopra: Okay. So you're basically you can find anything anywhere.
Priya Kanayson: Yes. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think there's a lot out there, which is exciting I think. And I think there's also a shift now and a really a demand that's being brought to like these traditional entities and global health to employ and work with people from different countries and that have real country experience too. So I think there's a lot of interest, and I think it makes such a difference to go out of New York, London, Geneva, you know, wherever you might be sitting and go into a different context 'cause it changes so much of your understanding and your perception of how things are done. Like what we learn is not the reality, like, of implementing things. Like, yes, everything would be great if this is how it worked, but you go into some context and that's not how it works. It's personalities of someone wanting to feel like they're the most important person in the room and this successful policy is due to them and them alone. And so you have to learn, like, it's a lot of people managing, it's a lot of relationships. Sometimes it's egos stroking, sometimes it's knowing the interpersonal relationships or the political relationships within a country, you know? So it's really interesting because we like to think that everyone gets that health is so important and everyone hoped that after COVID everyone would be like, "Yes, health is so important," but I mean that's not happening. There's just so many things happening in the world.
Aman Chopra: There's something about relationships that I find interesting 'cause you mentioned in the beginning that your relationships and your connections got you to where you are right now in Abu Dhabi. That influenced you to even move countries. And you're managing a lot of people, you have a big team that everyone has different needs and things that they need for them to operate at their best level. What is the importance of relationships, and how have you found it best to manage these relationships in the professional world?
Priya Kanayson: Yeah, I think you can't understate the importance of the relationships, honestly. I think it's so vital to doing anything. Because at the end of the day, right, we're working with humans, we have to understand what makes people tick. We have to understand how to get our point across. And I started out as global public health advocacy, like a civil society advocacy person sitting in New York, going to different embassies and talking to ambassadors and their health people and their environment people to understand, and I would have to know what was going on in the country and what their priorities were, and then how to position my specific issue in a way that they would care. 'Cause at the end of the day, like sure, maybe we all want people to be healthy and have good wellbeing and all of this. But at the end of the day someone's gonna be like, "Well, if I have finite resources, how's this gonna help me?" So I think it's important to show the connections and to create connections, 'cause we all wanna work with people we like. You don't wanna go in every day and have to talk to someone who makes your life miserable. So I think it's important to build those connections and to keep them. And yeah, you know, I came to Abu Dhabi because I trusted my boss. He was a really good boss when I was an intern. The UN doesn't pay its interns, and so his approach was, "If we're not paying you, I'm gonna give you the most opportunity I possibly can." So I was there during the negotiations for the sustainable development goals and the 2030 agenda for sustainable development. He had me sit in the seat to represented UNAIDS and I would sit there during negotiations. And if UNAIDS was called on, I was expected to give an answer that represented the entity, even though I was an intern. So like, I think, like, I got, and I know I was very lucky to have a supervisor and a boss who wanted to lift me up and give me those opportunities. But then I also put in the work to make sure that I was a trusted person, and I built the relationships within the entity with other partners, and I put in that work. And to me that's something that's important. And I think also looking at global health, like it's not a 9 to 5. Like also sitting in Abu Dhabi, like the time zones are so ridiculous. You know, the US is eight, depending if you're on the East Coast, eight or nine hours, or the West Coast is 11 or 12, like I'll start early and late at night sometimes, you know. But it's something that we care about. So yeah, I think the relationships are so important. And everyone, even now when you think about who do you wanna hire, you wanna hire someone that you get on with who's good at their job, but who makes coming to work fun as well.
Aman Chopra: Before I go on to my final questions, I wanna know what, can you simplify the term advocacy? We hear this oftentimes, you know, a lot of people, young students come in to GPH, they wanna fight for something. They want to represent something, they want to solve a global issue either because it bothers them, something that happens in the world, that there's just glaring things that need to be solved. What is advocacy to you?
Priya Kanayson: Yeah, to me advocacy is, I think, trying to influence policy or technical policy or, yes, I think it's the ultimate goal is to influence. It's to see change as a result of your work. Now that could be through something that you've written, it could be through research you've produced and then taken to people that can then implement it somewhere to, I don't know, get drugs to people who need it or to distribute mosquito nets or to understand how to better capture black flies and test them to see if they're carrying a disease. Because right now the current way to do that is to have people go sit by a river, have infected flies land on them, and then they capture them, like literally off their leg. And that's so old school, but that's what exists. So to me, advocacy is, ultimately, in this like lovely rosy green world, trying to make the world a better place by implementing and influencing policy and the environment in which we live, work, and play. And that then influences the determinants of health.
Aman Chopra: And can you simplify again, I asked this on pretty much every podcast, but what is a determinant of health?
Priya Kanayson: Yeah, so determinant of health, I would say it's the policy, so you think about like the social determinants of health, sort of do we have community around us? What is our access to food? Like in New York City, for example, you take the train like the 4, 5, 6, all the way from lower Manhattan, like Wall Street all the way up through the Bronx, the demographics change. But what also changes is the health status of the people on the train. Because you look around, there's less healthy food options. You probably have bodegas, more fast food places. The healthy food options are overpriced, so people can't afford it because of economic status. That's another determinant of health, economic status. You look at exercise. So all of these things that influence our health, air pollution, so the air quality in the environment is a determinant of health as well, and that's a big one. And it's all linked. But for better or for worse, so much of it happens in silos and sort of verticals. And I think one of the big things is trying to make those connections in the horizontals. And I think that's what I do a lot in my day-to-day is trying to see how a particular issue is connected to climate change or to education or to water and sanitation or things like this. Because I think at the end of the day, in a government, it's not the minister of health who holds a lot of powers, the minister of finance, unfortunately. And they're the ones who are unleashing the funds. So the more that you can say to that minister of finance, "This is gonna help your bottom dollar because you're gonna have less sick people who can go be educated and then go into the workforce and then they will buy things, they will contribute to the economy and overall lift you up." And a big determinant of health is also gender in many, many countries. Gender is a huge determinant of health. So it's a lot of making these links across issues.
Aman Chopra: So you're doing a lot, and I'm sure a lot of students, incoming, current, past, out, future, whatever they are, are inspired by this conversation. What would you leave with a student that's in their public health journey, whether they have even graduated and are in the world, kind of like where you were and then you move to Abu Dhabi out of nowhere? And someone that is currently in school and is thinking about their first internship, and even someone that is a young person in high school or even even below high school that's thinking about public health, what would you leave for them when it comes to the world of global public health?
Priya Kanayson: I think I'd leave two things. One is that it's a very big field, and there's so many different ways that you can go about it, which means try different things. And it's just as important to find out what you don't like as it is to find out what you like, 'cause then you start crossing things off the list and how to spend your day to day. And one of the other things I found, like for me, in this field, there's no set progression pathway. It's not like you're a partner in a law firm and, you know, "Oh, in 10 years I'm gonna be a senior partner and then I'm gonna be this." Like, I think for us there's no title progression. The way I look at it as what are the types of things I would wanna be doing, and that's helped me in the jobs that I look for or where I find satisfaction or how I find satisfaction. So it's thinking less about like title, but more how do I wanna spend my life? What do I wanna do on a day-to-day, what fulfills me? And some people like the 9 to 5, you close a laptop, that's it. And there are public health jobs like that. Others are not at all and it's like around the clock thing, but you just find what works for you. And some of that's trial and error, and I think it's not being afraid to just sort of jump off that cliff, which is what I did. I packed up my life in New York and moved to Abu Dhabi not knowing anyone, which was a big leap of faith. But thankfully it worked out.
Aman Chopra: Really happy, it's worked out. I'm really happy we got to have you on the episode to share all your amazing insights. I mean, reading about you was so fascinating. I was excited to see what it's like for someone that went to the same environment as all of us and has moved to the Middle East and is now influencing not local but also global policy, despite never having lived there, frankly.
Priya Kanayson: Yeah, no, it's great. And I think, you know, one of the other things too is like, at the end of the day, I don't find there to be too many cultural differences. I think people are people, you know, they're warm, they're welcoming, we all want the same thing. And I think if you come in with an open mind and don't let visible differences color your perceptions of people, you'll find a majority of people have open hearts, and it just helps you integrate a lot more.
Aman Chopra: And you certainly have an open heart as well, Priya. Thanks for sharing all their insights and thanks for being on this episode.
Priya Kanayson: Thank you so much for having me, Aman. It's been a lot of fun.
Aman Chopra: All right, folks, that's this episode. We'll see you in the next one, link's in the description. Whatever you learned, anything you'd like to share with Priya as well, put in the comments down below. I'm sure she'd love to read them and send some answers as well if it warrants something. Thanks, Priya. Take care, everybody. We'll see you in the next episode.