The Commissioned Corps of the U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS) works on the front lines. Students in health-related undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral programs can apply for Corps internships through its Junior Commissioned Officer Student Training and Extern Program (COSTEP). COSTEP interns learn about the Corps as they train alongside active-duty officers during school breaks. In addition to being paid, participants receive health benefits and housing and travel allowances. Upon completing the program, students become inactive Public Health Service officers and have the option to activate upon graduation. There is no obligation to join the USPHS Commissioned Corps.
COSTEP invites undergraduate students to apply if they meet eligibility criteria, including two years of study in environmental health, engineering, nursing, pharmacy, physician assistant, dental hygiene, dietetics, medical laboratory technology, medical record administration, or occupational, physical, or respiratory therapy. Graduate and doctoral students are required to have one year of study in the same fields. Each COSTEP program lasts between 30 and 120 days.
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The Indian Health Service (IHS) employs approximately 20 to 30 COSTEP interns every year in its Office of Environmental Health and Engineering. The application cycle usually begins in September and ends in December. ▸ Visit the Corps online to learn more about COSTEPS internships at usphs.gov.
Ask a Lieutenant in the Corps
Kayla DeVault, Shawnee/Anishinaabe, is a uniformed service member in USPHS and works for IHS. She was named an AISES Sequoyah Fellow in 2015 and is a member of the Winds of Change Editorial Advisory Council. DeVault holds undergraduate degrees in French and civil engineering from Case Western University and a master’s degree in American Indian studies from Arizona State University.
Tell us about your background and your educational and career path.
My family moved around when I was growing up; I spent a lot of time in the Great Lakes region. After graduating from high school and then earning my degrees from Case Western Reserve University in Ohio, I stayed in the area and took a job with the private sector. When I decided that wasn’t for me, I moved to Navajo Nation to work in tribal government. I took coursework on the side so I could learn to speak Navajo in my role and also started pursuing my first master’s degree. In addition to my service in the Corps, I am now working on my master of public health degree at George Washington University.
What do you do in your service for the Corps?
I was commissioned about a year ago, and I’m stationed with IHS in Montana and Wyoming. My primary job function is in Sanitation Facilities, which draws on my background in civil engineering. For the past year, I have primarily been focused on COVID-19 response. For facilities like hospitals, a lot of their needs have required special attention in terms of requirements such as social distancing and safe ingress and egress.
Why did you decide to apply to the USPHS?
When I worked in the private sector, I became frustrated because I often didn’t see the kinds of results I thought people needed. I wanted to work where my efforts could make a positive impact. When I was writing my thesis, I learned that the U.S. Public Health Service has Commissioned Corps avenues. My thesis was about sustainable energy in Indian housing and its public health implications, and I realized I could pursue public health in the Corps. So I applied for the Corps in the engineering category in 2018, was accepted in 2019, and completed my Officer Basic Course in early 2020. We were the last in-person course before the pandemic hit. I started working for IHS right after that.
“My thesis was about sustainable energy in Indian housing and its public health implications, and I realized I could pursue public health in the Corps.”
What would you like to highlight about serving in the Corps with IHS?
I think a lot of people either don’t know about the Corps or have misperceptions. While the Corps is one of the country’s eight uniformed services, we are not trained as combatants. Our role is to protect public health. We can be activated in a time of crisis, which is what happened in World War I and II, but we’re not enlisted soldiers. Also, people often don’t realize there are 11 different IHS job categories, all STEM-related. In addition to environmental health and engineering, there are opportunities for dieticians, rehabilitation therapists, science researchers, veterinarians, and various other medical professionals.
What else would you like to say about opportunities with USPHS?
I suggested that Winds of Change feature the Corps because I wish I had known about it and opportunities like COSTEP sooner. If readers are interested in a career that’s rewarding, helps people, and offers opportunities for advancement, I hope they’ll consider it. A COSTEP internship would be a great way to start. I want people to know that service with the Corps is an option for them.
The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., partners with the All Nations Alliance for Minority Participation (ANAMP) to offer the AMP Award to selected students pursuing a STEM discipline. The AMP Scholar Program provides financial stipends, conference travel assistance, and an array of internship and research opportunities. This NSF-funded initiative is focused on increasing the number of American Indians and other underrepresented minorities earning bachelor’s degrees in STEM fields.
Evergreen is part of a geographically diverse network of 34 colleges and universities. It offers more than 60 fields of study and 11 curated Paths of Study from STEM to Native American and Indigenous programs and environmental justice. Paths of Study students also have the opportunity to combine their studies with an internship at a local nonprofit, business, or government agency.
To be eligible for an AMP Award, students must be enrolled full time in an approved STEM discipline at a partner school such as Evergreen, have at least a 2.5 cumulative GPA, be seeking or involved in research with a mentor, and submit a degree plan. ▸ For more information, contact Evergreen Native Student Specialist Amber De Villers: pearsona@evergreen.edu.
Ask an Evergreen AMP Scholar
Willow Coyote-Maestas has an MS in bioinformatics and computational biology and a PhD in biochemistry, molecular biology, and biophysics, both from the University of Minnesota. In 2013, he was selected for the AMP Award at the Evergreen State College, where he graduated with a BS in chemistry. He is now a Quantitative Biosciences Institute Fellow at the University of California, San Francisco. He was recently awarded a prestigious Howard Hughes Medical Institute Hanna H. Gray Fellowship.
Where did you grow up and go to school?
I was raised by my mother, and we mostly moved back and forth between northern California and Hawaii. I went to Sir Francis Drake High School in San Anselmo, Calif. — the schools before that were too numerous to list. For the most part, they were poorly funded and not well organized. In high school, my science teachers actively discouraged me from pursuing science. At Evergreen State College I had supportive professors who saw me as a potential scientist and told me I could succeed in science.
What would you like to share about your tribal affiliation?
I am mixed race and a Jicarilla Apache descendent. My ancestors left their Native communities several generations ago and intermixed. One of my siblings and my stepmom help care for buffalo on the Pine Ridge Reservation, and I have spent some time there. In addition, my family is quite involved in activism and ceremony in urban Native communities in the Denver area. I was raised mostly apart from my Native families, but as an adult I work hard to build and maintain relationships with my Native communities.
What drew you to science?
When I was a child, my grandmother would tell me stories of how coyotes made humans mortal or created the stars through mischief. These stories sparked my interest in the natural world. Science gives me the same sense of wonder that stories did as a child. I think people raised in storytelling cultures can be scientific storytellers for our communities.
“The AMP program was instrumental in helping me find my path in science.”
How did you benefit from being an AMP Scholar?
The AMP program was instrumental in helping me find my path in science. It provided funds to help me afford my education, which was very important. I also received financial support to go to the 2014 Ocean Sciences Meeting, which played a crucial role in solidifying my career choice. This was my first research conference, and it got me involved in active research. I found it inspiring to be part of developing a scientific story. It was science in action!
What are you doing now, and what would you like to do next?
My long-term goal is to be a professor at a major research institution. I am currently studying a class of sensory molecules that underlie the feeling of pain, heat, and taste of spicy food. I am exploring how these receptors allow us to differentiate sensations. This information would be fundamental to understanding how we sense the world around us and could be useful for developing non-opioid pain treatments with fewer side effects and lower potential for the abuse that has plagued our communities.