Ramanjot Kaur was born in Punjab, a region in northern India and Pakistan. She moved with her family to the U.S. as a child due to political violence targeting Sikhs. Coming from generations of farmers, moving to a low-income suburb in the Bay Area was a stark transition, but her family found refuge in their home garden. Raman watched her mother transform a barren lawn into a lush garden, abundant with flowers and vegetables and an array of buzzing pollinators. For Raman, this garden was a reminder of her family’s continued resilience in starting over. In the garden, she learned that taking care of the earth took care of everyone – a lesson that led her to study environmental science and public health.
Raman graduated from UC Berkeley with a Bachelors degree in 2017 and a Masters of Public Health degree in Global Environmental Health in 2020. Graduating into a global pandemic, Raman supported the COVID-19 response as a Pandemic Response Specialist at UCSF. She then transitioned to global health projects as a Public Health Specialist, contributing to COVID-19, HIV, and maternal health projects in El Salvador, Malawi, Jamaica, India, Vietnam, and more. Currently, she serves as a Health Educator at the California Department of Public Health, supporting efforts to prevent tuberculosis, which disproportionately affects immigrant communities. In her spare time, Raman now nurtures a garden of her own and maintains a strong passion for global health equity – taking care of her community the way her parents taught her.