Rochester woman was once a refugee. Now she's the top doctor in Maine

Some of the people on this column’s list of Remarkable Rochesterian came from faraway places, overcoming obstacles on the way to significant achievements. Their stories are often accounts of perseverance and hope.

Here’s one more of those stories, that of Puthiery Va, a doctor and a public health leader. She has just become director of Maine’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, which has a broad responsibility for promoting and protecting the well-being of the state residents.

Va, 43, was born in 1980 in a refugee camp in Thailand, her parents having fled from the horrors of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.

She went to Louisiana in 1982 with her family, and, in 1984, came to Rochester with her mother, Ponee Chom, her father, Samath Va, her older sister, Phirun, and her younger sister, Parath. (Her brother, Serei, had died earlier in Cambodia.)

Va would become a star student at Benjamin Franklin High School in Rochester, the valedictorian of the class of 1998. She then graduated from the University of Rochester, went on to be a Peace Corps volunteer and then a medical doctor and epidemiologist.

As a health director with the Indian Health Service in Arizona, she was a leader of the response to COVID-19 for the Navajo Nation. Now she’s in Maine at a time when the state is dealing with the aftermath of the pandemic and perhaps the arrival of a new wave of the disease.

Rochester teacher says Va as eager to learn

Va’s achievements don’t surprise Jay Costanza, her biology teacher at Benjamin Franklin High School, who remembers his student as if she just walked in the door.

“It's hard to forget someone whom I could count on daily to light up my classroom with her eagerness to learn and obvious joy in working so well with others,” says Costanza, who is retired after 31 years with the city school district.

Va remembers Costanza, as well. “He was very critical in introducing me to the scientific method to exploring your curiosities through investigation,” she says. “I credit him for fueling that interest. And then also connecting me to challenging classes. I probably was complaining. And he said, ‘if you're not challenged enough, why don’t you take some classes at MCC while you're in school?’”

And she did, gaining enough credits from Monroe Community College to graduate from there at the same time she graduated from Franklin.

How did she get about? “My father drove me around,” Va says. “He would take me back and forth from classes in between his work breaks. He would show up in his truck, trying to scarf down his lunch. He brought me something to eat, too, and then he will take me to classes.”

In addition to her studies at Franklin and MCC, Va took part in a program that connected inner-city youths with health services jobs.

She worked as a tech at Rochester General Hospital, continuing in that job while at the University of Rochester, graduating from there in 2001 with a major in biomedical engineering. (She and her husband, Scott Kosel, met at Rochester General Hospital while both were college students. They have two young children.)

Va spent time teaching, learning

Va would spend two years in the Peace Corps in Burkina Faso in West Africa, teaching mathematics.

Electricity had just come to their village; textbooks were in short supply. “(But) I never saw a group of kids so dedicated to learning,” Va says. “And it made me feel good as a teacher, a novice teacher at that.”

Her own learning then continued at the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine, in Biddeford, Maine, where she would earn her medical degree. Then it was on to medical residencies and research positions.

In 2016, she joined the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta as an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer and, two years, later, she went to the Indian Health Services in Chinle, Arizona.

When COVID-19 arrived in 2020, it hit the Navajo Nation hard. Many families lived together in multi-generational homes. “Once COVID started to spread, it would explode within the homes,” Va says.

The Indian Health Service worked with the tribe to contain the illness, taking steps to isolate people with the virus. When vaccines arrived, the service did all it could to make them available. “How do you not love vaccines?” Va asks. “Folks lined up for these vaccines because they knew they were life-saving.”

Maine job is good fit for Va

Va still has strong Rochester connections, as her parents live in the house in which she grew up. Her mother is retired; her father is a welder. “He will forever work,” Va says. “He loves to work.” Va’s sisters are both nurses.

Va is a good fit for Maine. She knows the state from her time in medical school, and she can personally relate to its growing immigrant and refugee populations.

She arrives at a time when COVID-19 restrictions have eased — schools are long reopened, masks aren’t seen that often. But there has been an uptick in infections. On another front, climate change poses increased challenges.

The key for the Maine CDC, Va says, is to be prepared. “How do you make sure that we have a workforce that's ready to respond to whatever it is,” Va says, “whether it's another pandemic, or whether it's an environmental disaster that requires public health to be at the table?”

Jay Costanza’s memories of his biology student suggest that Va will be at the table, working hard. He remembers a time when he took his class to Oatka Creek for an environmental study.

“It was a hot and humid day, with insects flying all around,” he recalls. “But Thiery calmly helped other students to navigate the challenging tasks on which they were working.  Nothing was too messy or too hard; she took matters into her own hands.”

Remarkable Rochesterian

Given all she’s accomplished, let’s add the name of this physician  to our list of Remarkable Rochesterians that can be found at: https://data.democratandchronicle.com/remarkable-rochesterians/

Puthiery Va (1980 –  ) She became the director of Maine’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention in August 2023. Born in a refugee camp in Thailand, her parents having fled Cambodia, she graduated from Benjamin Franklin High School in Rochester and Monroe Community College before graduating from the University of Rochester. After a stint in the Peace Corps in West Africa, she earned a medical degree from the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine and was an officer of the Epidemic Intelligence Service at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta before going to the Indian Health Services in Chinle, Arizona, in 2018 and helping lead the Navajo Nation response to the Covid-19 epidemic.

Tag: From his home in Geneseo, Livingston County, retired senior editor Jim Memmott, writes Remarkable Rochester, who we were, who we are. He can be reached at jmemmott@gannett.com or write Box 274, Geneseo, NY 14454

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Dr. Puthiery Va of Rochester NY now top health care leader in Maine