Student: Chloe Cannon

Greenville native and East Carolina University junior Chloe Cannon always knew that she wanted to educate and serve her community. But it wasn’t until her freshman year, when she discovered public health, that she knew how she would make that change.

When Cannon arrived on-campus she was an intended biology major, but hearing her peer’s admiration for public health made her start to think about changing her major.

“I thought I would find the classes more than interesting since you get to see all the different factors that play into someone’s overall health. The lessons I’ve learned are more applicable to the real world,” she said.

Joining the College of Health and Human Performance was just the beginning of her journey with public health as Cannon now serves as president of the Preconception Educating Pirates, also known as the PEP Squad.

PEP Squad is a student organization dedicated to raising awareness of the importance of women’s health but with a primary focus on preconception health. Students from any major are allowed to join.

“PEP Squad has a strong focus on health, but we also try to do community service each semester,” Cannon said. This semester they made 70 bagged lunches for the Community Crossroads Center.

Chloe Cannon, front left, and the PEP Squad made 70 bagged lunches for the Community Crossroads Center. (Contributed photo)

Outside of PEP Squad, Cannon is also an Honors College student and involved with various research projects.

“I worked at a lab at the Brody School of Medicine with the biochemistry and molecular biology department for a year and now I’ll be starting on a digital equity project. I’ve really enjoyed doing research.”

“Since switching to public health, I’ve really taken an interest in maternal child health so that’s made me more interested in becoming a professor, but I’ve also thought about going into health policy,” Cannon said about her future career goals.

But for now, Cannon is focused on her next semester as she prepares to start her new research project and attend a leadership conference in March after being nominated by an ECU faculty member.

“I’m excited about it because it’s with other top universities and they have pretty good guest speakers, so I’m excited to learn from them,” she said.