Interviewed by Sonja Kari Murphy, AMFT (she/hers)

Anna Bazis Christie is an art therapy graduate student with a background in public health and a passion for using art to support collective wellness. Now in her final year at Dominican University (formally Notre Dame de Namur University), Anna previously worked as a Health Education Supervisor for UCSF School of Medicine, where she led youth and community health programs for over 7 years. Teaching physical health, sexual health, and women's health, Anna often integrated art as "the sugar that made the health education medicine go down." Anna recalls one moment in particular that sparked her interest in art therapy: "One day a young woman silently shared her art with our group. It had a visceral impact on all of us — I realized at that moment the art itself was the medicine. I knew I needed to learn why."

Returning to graduate school hasn't stopped Anna from continuing to work in public health, however. When the pandemic hit in 2020, Anna took an emergency response job with the Diné (Navajo) Nation through Community Outreach and Empowerment (COPE), a small Indigenous-run non-profit. Anna helped train and supervise remote Contact Tracers and Disease Investigators. At the time, the Navajo Nation had one of the highest rates of COVID in the world, compounded by pre-existing disparities from years of genocide, colonization, and social injustice. Patients often lacked basic resources like running water and electricity, making simple mitigation efforts such as handwashing difficult. Anna recalls "it was sometimes completely overwhelming during the initial surge. We often had three times as many calls as we could make and everyone was working a crazy amount of hours."