Leah-Lane Lowe ’00 always knows how to dress the part. Whether she’s talking shop with Gregg Allman or the nation’s leading scientist in liver disease, running around the set of last year’s Hollywood thriller Contagion or a clinic in Uganda, visiting with representatives from the Saudi Ministry of Health or the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – there’s nothing a simple wardrobe change won’t take care of.
“When I’m at work, I wear my costume – it’s my suit of honor and respect. It gives me confidence,” laughs Lowe, assistant director of public-private partnerships with the National Foundation for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (where fellow alumna Chloe Knight Tonney ’84 is the vice president for advancement). “I like making a difference between my professional persona and my personal persona. At home, I show my personality a little more – that’s how I get my artsy side out these days.”
Back in her days as a studio art major, Lowe never dreamed she’d one day have so many professional hats – serving as a spokesperson for the CDC Foundation, staging high-profile fundraising events, launching initiatives like the Viral Hepatitis Coalition, developing project solicitations for corporations and foundations, among other things.
“When I was in college, that there was something like this out there for me was not even a thought. But it was the College that led me down a direct path to public policy and public health,” says Lowe, who discovered the nascent women’s and gender studies minor her freshman year. From there, she began interning at the Center for Women, where she studied nonprofit organizations and fundraising events and even coordinated the center’s first annual Women’s Art Show.
“All I had to do is follow what I love – and it led me down a path that fulfills all of the things I’m passionate about,” says Lowe, who earned her master’s in public policy from Georgia State University. “I couldn’t have imagined that I would make my living and fulfill my passion for advocacy at the same time. I think that’s the beauty of a liberal arts education – you just pick up some things here and some things there, and eventually it leads you to where you’re supposed to be.”
Headquartered near the CDC offices in Atlanta, Lowe’s job leads her all over the world – building bridges between governments, the WHO, private-sector companies and scientists … and raising money, too. In fact, since 2006, she has raised over $36 million for CDC programs focused on diseases with potentially devastating impacts on global health: rabies, sexually transmitted diseases, hepatitis, HIV, malaria. Recently Lowe has been concentrating on viral hepatitis, including hepatitis C, which was in the United States blood system until 1992.
“So, if you had a blood transfusion before 1992, there’s a chance you have hepatitis C. But you wouldn’t know, because you might not have symptoms until you get liver cancer,” says Lowe, whose commitment to raising awareness about viral hepatitis led to a backstage pass to join the Allman Brothers, Phil Lesh, Natalie Cole and Crosby and Nash after their concert benefiting the disease last summer. “To me, this is a movement. There’s a huge death curve anticipated over the next 20 years – and it’s completely fixable. Aside from people not understanding that they could be at risk, the major thing that’s in the way is the stigma.”
That’s something that Lowe is addressing in the documentary series (filmed by fellow alumnus Lee Waldrep ’98) she is making through the Viral Hepatitis Action Coalition. The goal is to put a face on the disease and break down the stigma.
“The filmmaking has been eye-opening for me,” says Lowe. “Going into different people’s homes and seeing the faces, the people, behind the statistics and the numbers: That really brought it home for me.”
The filmmaking brought something else home, too: her creative, artistic side. And, Lowe has to admit, “It feels good to get a little creative while I’m wearing my grownup clothes!”
– Alicia Lutz ’98
