Profile: Tierney Davis

DISASTER RELIEF SPECIALIST

            She came to MSU wanting to become a magazine editor, so she majored in English. But after graduation, events have led her to become an international disaster relief specialist. A native of Frankenmuth, Tierney Davis, ’99, always wanted to travel, so after graduation, she joined the Peace Corps and spent two and a half years in Pilar, Paraguay. “I taught health education and also was an environmental sanitation volunteer,” explains Davis, who learned to build brick ovens as well as “elevated composting latrines, which are very environmentally friendly.”

            After returning to Michigan, Tierney enrolled in a master’s of health communication program at MSU. Near the end of her first term, the post-Christmas tsunami hit the Indian Ocean, causing destruction throughout Asia. “It was a heart-pounding moment,” recalls Tierney. “I did my research and since I was interested in health communication in an international setting, I decided that’s where I wanted to go.”

            Very quickly she joined the Christian Children’s Fund. When Tierney arrived in Aceh, Indonesia, earlier this summer, she was involved in the Child Protection Program as the administrator for 42 Child Centered Spaces. Her duties included ensuring the Child Centered Spaces received school supplies and snacks as well as office work. Two months later, Tierney was sent to Banda Aceh as the Health Project Officer. Her new position saw her in charge of 118 Child Centered Spaces and a total of 12,000 children. She planned projects such as nutrition assessment and disease surveillance. Davis also helped pilot a cooking class and assembled a public health care reference manual.

            “I had never been so completely involved in the development phase of programming,” she says. She now plans to help out in Chad or Sudan, or maybe even New Orleans. Helping disaster victims is, in her words, “a tremendously rewarding experience.”