College of Health and Human Services graduate Ilirjeta Krasniqi. Photo by Evan Cantwell.
Ilirjeta “Jeta” Krasniqi is accustomed to overcoming challenges.
Krasniqi, 22, came to the United States at age 5, when she and her family left war-torn Albania in the Balkans. They returned to their homeland but were soon faced with the decision to leave again.
“My mom saw the situation wasn’t going to be ideal for us to grow up in,” she said.
They returned to the United States when she was 10. Krasniqi said she feared having to repeat a grade. But she was actually promoted to the next grade level and continued to excel from there.
“I wanted to be a nurse and I knew the nursing program at George Mason University was competitive, so I said, ‘I need to get straight A’s.’ That was my goal, and I achieved it,” she said.
While in college, she worked as a nurse’s aide at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington.
“I realized that it wasn’t what I imagined it to be; I had a very romantic view of the nursing profession,” she said. She still wanted to be in the health field, though, and Mason’s health informatics program, which includes computer science, information science and medicine, seemed like a good fit.
After she graduates this month with a bachelor’s degree in health administration, she’ll still be helping people live healthier lives by analyzing medical data and identifying shortfalls in patient care.
“I think the information technology side scares a lot of women away,” said Krasniqi, who recently landed an internship with Evolent Health in Arlington.
“My team is all male; I’m the only female. Sometimes women communicate and exchange ideas in a different way than males, but I like the different perspective,” she said.
While interning at Evolent, she maintained her position as a nurse’s aide and convinced her employer at Virginia Hospital Center to let her join the hospital’s health informatics team as a summer intern.
"From the first day I met Jeta, she expressed the self-confidence and the motivation required to succeed in whatever profession she selected for herself. She has been proactive in seeking internships that would challenge her and require her to be a self-starter,” said Kathie Westpheling, a professor in Mason’s College of Health and Human Services. “Her reward for such planning and achievement is an offer to move to a paid internship position after completion of her academic placement at Evolent Health.”
By working at Evolent and at a hospital, she’s able to learn more about health informatics in two very different settings, Krasniqi said.
Staff in Mason’s Department of Health Administration and Policy also included her in their research projects. Health informatics professor Janusz Wojtusiak said Krasniqi volunteered to help with a research project aimed at improving medical data analysis.
“Her contributions to the work resulted in Jeta co-authoring a journal manuscript, a conference paper and two abstracts, which is an extraordinary achievement for an undergraduate student,” Wojtusiak said.
“It’s crazy that someone is going to read the paper I worked on,” Krasniqi said. “To know I contributed a little bit is amazing.”