IAPA (International and Public Affairs) is the Watson School’s undergraduate degree program. Featuring three distinct tracks of study — Development, Policy and Governance, and Security — the concentration aims to equip students with the skills necessary to be engaged global citizens.
Godbole, who is on the Policy and Governance track, believes that the subjects he is studying now and the methodologies he is learning will help him become a better physician. “I hope to contribute to the field of population health medicine,” he said, “and [IAPA’s] ethos of cross-disciplinary connection is so valuable for solving the multidimensional problems that I’m going to face in the future. Whether it’s addressing the nationwide opioid crisis or local health issues, that skillset that IAPA has granted me is so valuable.”
Besides providing him a strong methodological foundation for addressing complex problems, Godbole noted that IAPA has also given him opportunities to apply what he has learned in practical, real-world situations.
While taking Ieva Jusionyte’s Ethnographic Research Methods (IAPA1500A) course, Godbole did an independent research project through Connect for Health, a program run by Brown Health’s Community Health Institute. The program is designed to connect patients in need with the resources available to them.
“I had been volunteering with [Connect for Health] for a while,” said Godbole, “And I wanted to study what role community health workers play in advancing the health of populations.”
What he found is that community health is a complex web of interconnected systems that extend far beyond traditional healthcare settings. “I had the opportunity to shadow and interview many different leaders in the Providence community health network,” he said. “They aren’t only involved in the healthcare system, but also other systems that shape and impact patients’ lives and health outcomes.”
“This project reinforced for me that patients are so much more than just patients,” said Godbole, “Their health is not just impacted by the healthcare system but by other systems like the criminal justice and social service systems.” Godbole found that Providence’s community health leaders are deeply involved in these and other systems to support their clients holistically.
Godbole said that this course helped prepare him for a role he has taken on at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine in the Department of Population Health, as well as the scholarly work he aims to conduct throughout his career. “I am interested in how qualitative work can help us evaluate policy across many areas of medicine,” he said, “Professor Jusionyte’s class has really helped prepare me for that.”
“In Professor Jusionyte’s class, we learned things like participant observation, field notes, and even archival research. We learned how to approach ethnographic fieldwork in different ways, including audiovisual ethnography and artifact analysis,” said Godbole. “There are so many things in an environment that you can look for, and it takes practice to be able to extract relevant themes out of your experiences.”
At the Watson School, Godbole not only found highly skilled professors to learn from but also a welcoming and supportive group of students with diverse backgrounds and interests. “There are so many different types of students in IAPA,” he said, “I've met pre-law students, students who are interested in finance, students driven to work in public service or nonprofit sectors, as well as those who want to enter political science or international relations academia. The program leadership truly understands the multiformity of IAPA’s student community, and they make an intentional effort to allow students to tailor their coursework to their particular interests,” he said.
Godbole’s plans for the future are ambitious. “I want to work in population health,” he said, “but I also hope to provide individual care for patients as a physician. I see myself engaging in the policy arena as well.” He is currently applying to medical schools for admission in the fall of 2026.
