Graduates of Nell Hodgson Woodruff School (abbr.)

A Puzzle Master, an Investigative Reporter and a Disney Executive Walked Into Emory

By Madi Olivier, News editOr

Edwin Trevathan (82M, 82PH) Djuan Rivers (87C)

Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health Director Edwin Trevathan (82M, 82PH) credits his love for the Emory University School of Medicine to his scholarship interview getting pushed back.

With nothing to do until his interview, Trevathan wandered down the street to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and walked through the front door, where he was taken on a personal tour of the CDC and ate lunch with Epidemic Intelligence Service officers, who told him stories about their jobs. He didn’t know anything about the CDC or public health — he was just looking to kill some time — but when Trevathan left to go back to his interview, he knew he was in the right place.

“I just had such a favorable impression that day, that I just mainly knew that I was going to go to Emory whether I got the scholarship or not,” Trevathan said.

He ended up getting some scholarship money and attended the medical school, where he became the first Emory student to simultaneously receive a doctor of medicine (MD) and masters of public health (MPH), though he didn’t know it at the time. Getting both degrees wasn’t a hard decision for Trevathan — he saw a pamphlet advertising the new MD MPH program and thought it was a great idea, as he already decided he wanted an MPH after his limited exposure to the CDC. The dual degrees helped him think about medicine differently.

“At the same time that I thought about the patient, [I could] think about big picture epidemiology, big picture policy issues,” Trevathan said.

Trevathan achieved his dream of working at the CDC when he became the director of the CDC’s National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities.

“There’s so many CDC people at Emory, so many Emory people at the CDC, that ... I see it as almost one big family,” Trevathan said.

While at Emory, Trevathan didn’t just study epidemiology and medicine. He learned “how to learn, and how to spend [his] life.”

“The culture at Emory and the way we were educated, prepared us for lifelong learning,” Trevathan said.

Trevathan said that it will be up to Emory graduates to do the same as the world navigates the pandemic and other difficulties, no matter how “overly ambitious” it sounds.

“The problems we’ve got in the world today, we’re going to get out of them not by my generation leading the way,” Trevathan said. “It’s going to be you all.”

Courtesy of edwin trevathan Like many pre-med students at Emory, former Animal Kingdom Vice President Djuan Rivers (87C) wanted to be a doctor since he was five years old — until, suddenly, he didn’t. Rivers realized medicine wasn’t for him during his third year at Emory, and he switched to economics.

“Whatever you are certain about, trust me, you’re going to be very uncertain about later on,” Rivers said. “The experiences that you have at Emory … are subconsciously feeding that, and it’ll give you the courage to make that leap of faith.”

He graduated without a plan, so he applied for the Naval Academy, but backed out at the last minute during the swearing in ceremony.

Amid a market crash and layoffs, Rivers found himself working at the Atlanta Marriott Marquis. A Disney recruiter came into the hotel and convinced a reluctant Rivers to apply for a general manager position after finding out he worked at Disney in high school. Soon after, he got a job in the resort division and worked his way up, eventually becoming the vice president of Animal Kingdom.

“That was the transition for my career from being what I thought was the perfect job being a doctor, to something that turned out to be an amazing career,” Rivers said. “It’s taken me around the world and tremendous opportunities to leave a legacy and to inspire people.”

At the time, Rivers, who retired in May, was one of the most senior Black Disney employees. Disney has done a great job promoting diversity, he added.

Although he never had any negative experiences as a Black student at Emory, Rivers said he had only about 10 Black men and 15 Black women in his graduating class, and he could go all day without seeing another person of color on campus.

“The last time I went, it’s like, ‘Oh my god,’” Rivers said. “I couldn’t believe the diversity of the population … that’s there now. It’s pretty incredible.”

Rivers said he would tell Emory students to not be so scared of the unknown, because they have the tools to succeed as long as they keep moving forward. And if they don’t know which direction to go, Rivers said it doesn’t matter — just choose a goal and work toward it, because plans can always be changed later.

“Sometimes life continues to offer you opportunities, but you’re fighting it because you feel like you’re destined to do something else,” Rivers said. “Your destinies could potentially lie someplace else.”

Courtesy of emory university