Shihipar also used his talents as a writer to help his colleagues to spread the word about their research and the issues that are important to them. Before and during his time at Brown, Shihipar published opinion essays in the New York Times, Washington Post and elsewhere. And as a communications scholar at the School of Public Health, Shihipar helped fellow students and faculty to place opinion pieces of their own, and to communicate complex research in a way that non-experts can follow. 

That was another illustration, Shihipar says, of how one can benefit from helping others.

“I got a lot of experience talking to faculty members and students about their research and studies,” he said. “I learned a lot about fields that I wasn’t necessarily familiar with.”

Shihipar’s master’s thesis combined his interests in news media and overdose prevention. For his research, he tracked media coverage of law enforcement officers and others who reported adverse health effects after having contact with fentanyl, a powerful opioid often used to lace heroin or cocaine. In some cases, people reported overdose symptoms after merely touching the drug or contacting people who had taken it. There’s no medical evidence that such encounters could produce any negative health effects, Shihipar says. But news media often report overdoses resulting from these encounters without verifying that an overdose has actually taken place.

“It has led, in some localities, to people being charged with assault if an officer overdoses,” Shihipar said. “It’s a concern because it can lead to enforcement or bystanders not wanting to administer aid or intervene in an overdose because they think it’s dangerous.”

And now more than ever, amid both the opioid crisis and the coronavirus pandemic, the world needs more people who are unafraid to reach out and help each other, Shihipar says. He sees plenty of hopeful signs that people are indeed still willing to help.

“A lot of people are responding with acts of solidarity and looking out for each other,” he said. “There are plenty of examples of people engaged in dropping off food for other people, making masks for other people, connecting with seniors from a distance or writing letters to people. That’s what gives me hope is that a lot of people are willing to help each other.”

Shihipar hopes that his fellow graduates will take those examples to heart as they leave Brown. 

“No one goes through graduate school alone,” he said. “Given that so many people have supported you, your job when you go out into the world is to then become part of other people's support systems. There’s an immense responsibility and opportunity right now for people to use their degrees in a way that helps others.”