Fariha Rahman is a master’s student in the Department of Population Health Sciences, as well as a Margolis Scholar at the Margolis Institute for Health Policy. She also was in the 2024 Duke Global Policy cohort in Geneva, Switzerland and was named a 2024 David A. Winston Health Policy Scholar. She previously earned a BSPH in health policy and management from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Fariha has a multi-faceted background in healthcare through clinical experience, research, and advocacy. She has served as a birth doula and co-chief emergency medicine scribe at UNC Hospitals. She also has interned at US of Care, a health policy think tank, where her work helped lay the groundwork for their maternal health policy initiative and resulted in a publication discussing the barriers in providing virtual care for healthcare providers.
As a DIRECT fellow at Duke, she conducted an independent research project analyzing the mental health outcomes among ovarian cancer patients that has been published in Social Science and Medicine - Mental Health. More recently, she leads the digital content production at the Duke Center for Girls and Women with ADHD, as well as serves as a graduate assistant for the Reproductive Health Care Post-Roe Bass Connections project and policy coordinator for Breastfeed Durham. Fariha is a firm believer that effective policy changes can address the social and structural determinants underlying women's health disparities, and hopes to intersect her clinical experience, research, and passion for advocacy to drive systemic change that improves women’s health through policy.