Des Moines University’s 123rd Commencement ceremony on Thursday, June 1, 2023, will feature a keynote speech by Megan Srinivas, M.D., M.P.H., an infectious disease physician, public health policy researcher and legislator representing District 30 in the Iowa House of Representatives. The ceremony will begin at 2 p.m.
When she won that office in 2022, she became the youngest woman of color ever elected to the Iowa Legislature. In the 90th General Assembly (2023), she is the ranking member of the Administration and Regulation Budget subcommittee and serves on the Agriculture, Commerce, Judiciary and State Government committees.
An infectious disease expert for the Iowa Primary Care Association, Srinivas also runs a small business that provides consultation in public health and infectious disease.
Her keynote to this year’s DMU graduates will focus on the importance of advocacy by health professionals for their patients as well as their professions. The university’s Commencement ceremony will begin at 2 p.m. at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines.
Srinivas hosts the Center for Disease Control and American Medical Association infection prevention and health equity podcast, “Stories of Care.” She serves on the Iowa Supreme Court’s Access to Justice Commission and the board of the Iowa chapter of the National Alliance for Mental Illness. In 2020, she chaired the Biden/Harris COVID-19 Response Council of Iowa.
Srinivas graduated cum laude from Harvard University with a bachelor’s degree in human evolutionary biology. She earned her medical degree at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine and a master’s degree in public health at Harvard. After completing her residency at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, she served as an infectious disease physician, clinical instructor and translational health policy research fellow at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine from June 2017 to July 2022. She also practiced as an infectious disease and internal medicine physician at a rural federally qualified health center in Fort Dodge, Iowa, from January 2018 to July 2020.
Srinivas has been a consultant, collaborator and principal investigator on several grant-funded research efforts on topics including sexual and reproductive health, COVID-19 and health disparities.
DMU offers 10 graduate-level professional degree programs in osteopathic medicine, podiatric medicine, occupational therapy, physical therapy, physician assistant studies, health care administration, anatomy, biomedical sciences and public health. Founded in 1898, the institution offers superior academics in a collaborative environment. DMU students’ scores on national examinations, pass rates on board certifications and match rates for medical residency programs are consistently higher than national averages and rates at peer institutions.
