A lot of people rely on the information we’re producing. It’s so impactful and it drives me to make sure I’m doing my job well.
After completing her Masters in Public Health, Ijeoma was looking for an opportunity to learn and grow. She joined GDIT as a Senior Policy Analyst where she works at the intersection of health and technology, supporting activities for the Affordable Care Act.
Helping people with their healthcare needs. My team owns it.
My team supports the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. We manage the content on marketplace.cms.gov, which helps individuals navigate their healthcare options. My day could include meetings with clients, working with our IT team to develop materials, making sure our publications online are up-to-date, or checking policies and making sure they match the content we’ve created.
Over a thousand assisters look at the documents and training materials we create so they know what information they need to help consumers and individuals. I take joy in that what we do really helps them to do their job better.
A pivotal healthcare moment.
The Affordable Care Act was passed when I was in college. I also studied abroad and took a course on Medicine and Compassion where I met a teaching assistant who was a public health professional. Learning about her background and the Affordable Care Act led me to become a navigator during college. A navigator is someone who is licensed to help individuals enroll in health insurance. I heard so many stories about people’s concerns around health insurance and it has impacted the work I do now.
Managing a project from start to finish.
I’m touching a lot of aspects of my project that I didn’t think I’d be able to touch at this stage in my career. One of the things we create is an assister boot camp. Before open enrollment, we release videos that show them what the marketplace application will look like from start to finish. I helped create what the videos would look like and tested them with our developers. I saw the project through from start to finish. It’s just one way GDIT has helped me grow professionally.
Community impact.
I’ve also had the chance to volunteer through GDIT with organizations I care about. I’ve volunteered with the DC Central Kitchen and Black Girls Code through our Black Employee Network. The Black Girls Code event was one of my favorite experiences. We worked with groups of young girls who had a little sphere they could control by using code. We’d ask them to make a design with the sphere by writing code so they got the chance to see how writing code impacts an outcome.
I never had an opportunity like that when I was younger. We got to see young girls interested in technology work hands-on with projects to help them learn about tech. It means a lot to me to show young women the opportunities available to them.