Sara Tiersma
January 21, 2025
From a young age, Janak Kaur was told to be a doctor and build a career around helping people. This focus on others is encouraged by Janak’s faith tradition of Sikhism, particularly through one of its guiding principles of Seva, or selfless service. But where doctors help one patient at a time, in public health she found a way to help whole communities through her work.
Graduating in 2020 from UC Irvine with a degree in Public Health, Janak earned her masters in the same field from the University of Southern California. Today she works as a fellow for the California Department of Public Health in the Epidemiologic Investigation Service (Cal-EIS) using applied epidemiology to develop tools for improved disease surveillance and examining protective factors against disease.
Janak’s passion for public health is inspired by her faith in Sikhism. “It’s my Seva. I’m working and helping a bigger community of people,” she says. “The health of the community, to me, is very important.”
Beyond her studies and work, Janak has also spent time volunteering for different public health organizations. As a young child she began helping put together the United Sikh Mission’s Rose Parade float. In college, she got involved with the Bhagat Puran Singh Health Initiative (BIPSHI), a public health club based on Sikh values, the Sikh Student Association (SSA), and the Public Health Association (PHA).
When the COVID-19 pandemic shook the world and her community, Janak became more hands-on with the United Sikh Mission and their goal to provide grocery and medical kits to households in need. Today she remains an involved volunteer with the United Sikh Mission and the work they do within the community.
This community work includes partnering with the Interfaith Climate Action Working Group through the Wildland-Urban Interface Climate Action Network, or WUICAN. At a public WUICAN interfaith event themed around air, Janak represented the organization and faith tradition sharing how in Sikhism air is the guru, the teacher and connector of all, a shared lifeline that needs to be protected.
In addition to helping their fellow neighbors, a central Sikh teaching is responsibility towards the environment. As an organization, the United Sikh Mission is advancing clean energy and sustainability. Whether by building solar farms for their mission in India or providing education programs to community members there and in America, United Sikh Mission is helping people as well as the places where they live.
For Janak, this intersection between faith, community and the environment comes together both in her volunteering with USM and her work in public health. With Seva she is called to be a selfless servant of the divine creation, this beloved Earth and everything that populates it.
“It’s spiritual. This is where we came from. The environment. The air. We are the air. We are the environment. We’re just honoring the creation and supporting the welfare of everyone.”
Sara Tiersma is a senior at the University of California, Irvine, where she is majoring in Literary Journalism. She is a 2024-2025 WUICAN Climate Communications Fellow with the UC Humanities Research Institute (UCHRI).
WUICAN acknowledges our presence on the ancestral and unceded territory of the Acjachemen and Tongva Peoples, who still hold strong cultural, spiritual and physical ties to this region.
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