Sam Poelstra

Sam Poelstra (she/they) is a second-year MPH student in Health Systems & Population Health here at the University of Washington and serves as a Graduate Research Assistant with the UW Center for Community-Engaged Drug Education, Epidemiology, and Research (CEDEER) at ADAI, to update existing data processing workflows and explore data pipeline optimizations. Prior to beginning their Masters, Sam worked as a data engineer for three years and before that, spent many years working extensively as a search engine optimization expert, managing large Fortune 500 clients. They’ve always been interested in harm reduction and accessible healthcare for all and are excited to apply their expertise in data engineering to the WA Community Drug Checking Network’s system architecture. Their research interests include treatment access for populations with co-occurring SUD and serious mental illness, public health surveillance technology, accidental drug overdose prevention, and housing first policy.