D ecorated basketball athlete Brandon Thomas spent his time at Georgia College & State University balancing athleticism, academics and community service.
 
Now, he’s graduating with the dream of becoming an infectious disease epidemiologist—and hoping to study emergent tropical diseases like malaria.
 
Thomas worked one and a half years at the Center for Health and Social Issues, assisting Dr. Damian Francis, assistant professor of public health. He’s also gone above and beyond to serve communities in Baldwin County, earning him the center’s Community Service Medallion.

“He was integral in planning breast cancer outreach events and in working with the Georgia War Veterans Home to bring awareness to lung cancer and conduct lung function screenings,” Francis said. “As an aspiring epidemiologist, Brandon not only exhibits the intellect but also the empathy required to change lives through advocacy and public health.”

Thomas says he learned the key to serving communities through work for the center: acceptance. Understanding the dynamics of a community from the inside out is vital to the trust needed to help underserved communities, he said.
 
“Working with the CHSI gave me experience communicating with people,” Thomas said. “Those people then open up and give suggestions, which I can follow up on and offer solutions.”

His family in McDonough, Georgia, is made up of a registered nurse, physical therapist and future internal medicine doctor. He was motivated to break the mold after seeing how devastating a pandemic like COVID-19 can be.
 
“My whole family has always been in the medical field, but I didn’t want to do individualized medicine,” he said. “I wanted to stay on a structural level, so I branched out after taking public health and seeing I could still influence people’s lives on a large scale.”

His next step to achieving that dream is a master’s in infectious disease epidemiology at the University of Georgia. He plans to earn a Ph.D. and work for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
 
“I used to visit Jamaica a lot, where malaria is a problem in smaller communities and people are suffering,” Thomas said. “So, I want to do more research and find out how we can address issues like that.”

“You don’t have to go to medical school to do things in health,” he said. “You can still influence people’s lives from a broader perspective, and I want to do that.”