Megan Sandel MED ’96 fights for children: For the child struggling to breathe because his family’s apartment is laden with mold. For the child being poisoned by the lead that lurks in her home’s water supply. For the child who has no home at all.

As a nationally recognized expert on housing and its connection to children’s health, principal investigator with Children’s Health Watch, associate professor of pediatrics at the Boston University School of Medicine, and associate professor of environmental health at the Boston University School of Public Health, Sandel has made it her mission to build safer, healthier futures for families everywhere. But before she set out to change lives, the professors at Dartmouth Medical School (now Geisel School of Medicine) changed hers.