In this episode, undergraduate public health students Easheta Shah and Nia Allen are joined by decision scientist and health policy researcher Anton L.V. Avancena. Avancena recently completed his PhD in Health Organization and Policy at the University of Michigan in 2022, where he was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Research Scholar, and now works as an Assistant Professor at the University of Texas College of Pharmacy. One of his main areas of research involves understanding the health, economic, and social consequences of alcohol misuse and evaluating treatments, pharmacotherapies, and population-level interventions that reduce the burden of alcohol use. As he walks us through his main takeaways from each step in his public health journey — ranging from HIV/AIDS research to mental health work in Santa Clara to global health efforts at the University of California San Francisco — we begin to realize that it really isn’t about the dream job at the final destination. Anton’s vast interests across different areas in public health bring a nuanced perspective to our pressing questions about equity and efficiency within the behavioral health care system.