Tanya Keenan: Exploring the World of Possibilities
“I don’t go into new situations with a lot of preconceived ideas or expectations,” admits Tanya Keenan. “That way I can stay open to all of the possibilities.”
Keenan’s ability to see life’s gray areas and her refusal to be pigeon-holed by an “either/or” perspective have prompted this gifted scholar to pursue many diverse and extraordinary opportunities, from working side by side with some of the University of Pittsburgh’s most exciting researchers to learn more about brain function, to traveling around the world to study in Tibet through the Pitt in China program. Even her double major in political science and neuroscience builds a bridge between two totally different disciplines.
A Very Successful Undergraduate Career
From the very beginning of her undergraduate career at the University, Keenan, a senior in the School of Arts and Sciences and a native of Phoenixville, PA, has distinguished herself. Her outstanding high school achievements earned her a full-tuition Chancellor’s Scholarship and a place in the University Honors College, and in 2006, her sophomore year, she was one of only two Pitt undergraduates to be awarded a Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship in recognition of the independent research she was conducting under the tutelage of Anthony Grace, professor of neuroscience, psychiatry, and psychology.
Keenan’s Work in South Africa
During her junior year, Keenan was selected to participate in the National Institute of Mental Health Undergraduate Fellowship Program in Mental Health Research. And in the summer before her senior year, the Women’s International Club presented Keenan with a grant to travel to Durban, South Africa, to study HIV/AIDS and health care with Child Family Health International (CFHI).
CFHI is a nonprofit organization dedicated to working at the grassroots level to promote the health of the world community. The South Africa program that Keenan chose to participate in is one of CFHI’s service learning initiatives that allow college students to gain hands-on experience in public health and clinical settings. For Keenan, with her willingness to immerse herself in new and challenging circumstances, this program was a perfect fit and a chance to draw on many of the unique bodies of knowledge she had gained both inside and outside of the University’s classrooms.
“I spent five weeks working with doctors and patients at different public health sites, including an AIDS vaccine clinic, rural hospitals, semi-private hospitals, and a hospice,” explains Keenan. “I even had the chance to go out with home-based care workers to visit with patients in their natural settings.”
In little more than a month, Keenan had a lifetime’s worth of unforgettable experiences, such as helping a doctor deliver a baby by Caesarean section, witnessing the ravaging effects of disease, including malaria and tuberculosis, and being welcomed into the homes of devastatingly poor strangers who were eager to share their stories with young people from the U.S.
Inspired by Her Experience
These days, Keenan has re-immersed herself in her studies and is in the midst of applying to medical schools. But the nearly 9,000 miles between Pittsburgh and Durban have done nothing to distance this remarkable young woman from her commitment to making a difference for people like the ones she met in South Africa, or to diminish her willingness to remain open to life’s many possibilities.
Says Keenan, “The trip was hugely impacting, and different things touched me for different reasons, but the main feeling I came home with was this great positive motivation to raise awareness about and continue to study international health care and policy issues in developing countries.”