Epidemiologist Victoria Selser ’20 is building healthier communities in Fitchburg, Mass.—and earning statewide honors for her commitment to public health and health equity.

Victoria M. Selser ’20 began her public health career as one of Massachusetts’s first contact tracers during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Five years later, she serves as an epidemiologist for the City of Fitchburg, where her work to expand health care access recently earned her the Local Public Health Leadership Award from the Massachusetts Public Health Alliance (MPHA).

“When I found out, I was really surprised and proud of everything my colleagues and I have accomplished,” Selser says. “Fitchburg is an under-resourced community that is often overlooked. It’s motivating to know that we’re doing the right things and that we can use this recognition as motivation to continue moving forward.”

Selser was honored during the MPHA 2025 Spring Awards Breakfast. UMass Amherst Professor and Senior Vice Provost for Equity and Inclusion Wilmore Webley—one of Selser’s most influential mentors—was there to celebrate her achievement.

Watching Selser receive her award, Webley says he “felt like a proud parent. Victoria is a remarkable young scholar, educator and public health leader/advocate, who is unafraid to take on the most challenging issues facing underserved populations in our communities. She embodies humility, thoughtful compassion, innovative thinking, and unmatched grace.”

Selser views her work as a responsibility to meet people where they are, and to act when others might look away.

“Once you see the realities of public health challenges our communities face, you cannot turn your back on them. One of my favorite parts of my job is having the ability to intervene—to be able to not just say, who is being left behind, but also, what are we doing about it?”

A first-generation college student, Selser originally hoped to enroll at a small private school and eventually attend medical school. At her cousin’s urging, she applied to UMass Amherst. Her acceptance into the Commonwealth Honors College sealed the deal.

“The Honors College gave me that smaller, close-knit environment I was looking for, right within a large, dynamic campus.” she says. 

As an Honors student, Selser joined the Biological Sciences Talent Advanced Program (BioTAP), an invitation-only, intensive program for first-year biological science majors. She lived on the third floor of Sycamore Hall, declared herself a microbiology major, and became immersed in a tight-knit community of supportive peers and educators. 

“I liked that many of the microbiology faculty taught several courses,” she explains. “It helped create continuity and made it easier to build meaningful relationships.”

Among the most impactful faculty were microbiology’s Undergraduate Program Director Heather Reed and Webley, with whom she took several classes. It was in one of Webley’s classes, Outbreak: Emerging Infectious Disease and Society, where Selser found herself in spring 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic began to take hold.

“Before COVID made everything real, our discussions in class about pandemics felt abstract and hypothetical,” she says. “It was surreal to be studying pandemics while the world was being reshaped by one.”

While taking Webley’s course, Selser joined Massachusetts’s COVID-19 contact tracing program, known as the Community Tracing Collaborative (CTC). As a contact tracer, Selser reached out to people who tested positive for COVID-19, as well as their close contacts, to make sure they received the support they needed to isolate, quarantine, or get tested. 

“I will never forget those first calls to people with COVID in the early days of the pandemic,” she says. “Many of us describe this experience as ‘building the plane as we were flying it.’”

Selser rose to a role as an outbreak specialist within the Epidemic Intelligence Unit, where she investigated COVID-19 outbreaks in partnership with local health departments. She even invited Webley to speak to her team when accurate information about COVID-19 was hard to find.

When the CTC ended in 2021, she transitioned into her current role with the City of Fitchburg. As an epidemiologist, Selser identifies community health needs and determines how best to respond—whether it’s tracking infectious diseases, addressing environmental hazards like lead exposure, or removing barriers to care. Notably, Selser has brought sunscreen dispensers to public outdoor spaces in her communities and a free care clinic run by volunteers to area residents.

Looking back, Selser says her education at UMass has been invaluable as she moves forward in her career. She also values her experience as a volunteer for Big Brothers Big Sisters, where she served as a “big” to a local elementary-aged student. It gave her early, hands-on experience with underserved communities, something she says continues to inform her public health approach today.

“Victoria is an excellent example of the value and reach of a UMass education,” Webley says. “It was a joy having her in my classes and is a privilege to still be in touch with her after these many years.”

As for what’s next, Selser says she hopes to someday bring her experiences in public health to a career in medicine. 

“The education and relationships I built at UMass empowered me to step confidently into the challenges of public health and to keep striving for equity in every community I serve.”

Victoria M. Selser ’20

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