Wagner School’s Allison Smith to Continue Dedication to NYU Community Service
By Robert Polner
Allison Smith’s pursuit of a master’s degree at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service has been guided in a sense by the health problems she suffered as a child, when asthma forced her to seek care from specialists throughout the country.
By the time she was 16, Smith, who graduates today with an M.P.A., was an expert on the condition. She was inspired to create Asthma Information Resources (AIR) for Kids, a curriculum to teach asthmatic children and their parents about managing the ailment. Since the program’s inception in 2001, it has provided medical supplies, training, and support to hundreds of asthma sufferers and their families, spanning 11 schools, two asthma summer camps, and hospitals in four states. Bellevue Hospital’s family asthma education program even incorporated Smith’s curriculum in 2004 to help families on the Lower East Side.
“I’ve found that so many kids just don’t have access to information about how to deal with asthma, or even the most basic healthcare devices,” says Smith.
When she arrived at NYU in the fall of 2003, she brought all her asthma program materials, but learned she had nowhere to keep them. Lisa Kail, the University’s assistant director for community service, to whom she’d successfully applied for a $500 grant to support her project, told her she’d have to find space on her own. Smith begged for help and Kail finally agreed to take just one box, which to Kail’s surprise turned out to be big enough to hold a refrigerator.
Kail made room for the box and, over time, she made room, too, for someone whose whirlwind energy, loyalty, and talent became indispensable to her office. “Aside from being my right hand in all things community service, Allison is an accomplished student, integral staff member, and often mistaken for my adopted child,” Kail says with a laugh. “On all counts I could not be more proud.”
Raised in New Jersey, Smith earned her B.A. in psychology from the College of Arts and Science in 2007. As she approached her senior year, she met with Debra Cabrera, Wagner’s director of student services, who helped Smith apply undergraduate credits toward a Wagner degree in health policy and management.
That experience, along with five years of working for the Office of Community Service, helped Smith land the new job she’ll soon start at NYU’s Student Health Center, as an associate research scientist and program coordinator. Along with the center’s Henry Chung and Michael Klein, she’ll work on a multi-site study on how depression is identified and treated on college campuses.
“All my life people have gone out of their way to make sure I have the things I need,” says Smith. “I’m forever grateful to everyone who helped shape a successful path beyond anything I could have imagined.”
