Dayna Kirk ’01 advocates need for community responsibility
Dayna Kirk ’01 accompanied AIDS workers into the brothels of Mumbai (Bombay) to gather research for her independent study project. And she made quick decisions at the scenes of accidents as a First Responder.
"She also performed the quiet, nightly, unglamorous heroics of grappling with upper-level biochemistry classes to understand the biology and pathogenesis of the AIDS virus," says Elizabeth Safran, assistant professor of geological science. "She pushed herself and others to knit social concern with hard science, and she always sought the path of richest experience.
"Dayna’s ambition, to which she is calmly and unwaveringly devoted, is to obtain both a medical degree and a master of public health degree to arm herself fully for the struggle against disease."
Kirk won this year’s American Association of University Women’s Senior Woman Recognition Award. The award recognizes women with the potential for future achievement—women of exceptional scholarship, character and personality who have contributed to campus and community life.
Kirk, who majored in sociology and anthropology, has completed the entrance requirements for medical school. But before she continues her studies, Kirk is taking a year off.
She will continue as programming chair of Portland-Mutare (Zimbabwe) Sister City AIDS Response to ensure that a health clinic, which has been in the works for more than five years, is built in Mutare. And she will also continue as a volunteer coordinator at For Us Northwest, a program for HIV-infected children and those with a parent or sibling who is infected with the virus. Kirk plans to attend medical school in the fall of 2002.
"My goal is to work for United Nations AIDS or the World Health Organization," she says, "where I can focus on disease control and prevention and public health policy."
Through her studies and her work, Kirk advocates the need for personal and community responsibility.
"People, especially in the United States, need to develop a sense of community responsibility and to look beyond their own friends and families," she says. "The world is losing entire populations due to HIV-related illness, and the problems are getting worse. Whether or not we acknowledge it, we are all interrelated." | 
