Small Moments of Impact

Professor Frick is a health economist and professor at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School (with joint appointments at the Bloomberg School of Public Health and School of Medicine). For 30 years, she has been at Johns Hopkins performing a variety of teaching, mentoring, research and administrative roles. In her spare time she loves to walk or run for exercise, cook, and write poetry which occasionally gets turned into song.

Check out our Q+A with Vina below, and be sure to read her full feature in our July issue of En Root!

This month's theme is all about building in small moments of impact. Tell us how this theme has played a role in your personal or professional life.

I've benefitted from and contributed to others through sustained mentoring relationships. But, I have also benefitted from the one opportunity to have a discussion with a number of people over time. There was a student at a conference a number of years back, with whom I crossed paths at a session focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion issues. I was not fully out, but I was dressing as someone clearly in transition and interested in demonstrating that I was not feeling comfortable with the societal expectations of binary gender. The student made a comment about the difference in their undergraduate experience if they had had faculty who dressed like me—so, I'd clearly made an impression. The student's comment was also inspirational to me as I struggled with continuing on the path. We have crossed paths again once and may again in the future. But that moment walking from the session at which we met to our next sessions and just parting left an indelible mark on my conscience.

At OutGrowth, we believe in designing the space and time to reimagine the path forward. How do you think that building in small moments of impact can help us to navigate our lives and careers?

While I have focused most most of my energy in my career on long-term relationships and cumulative impact, I have also made an impact and been impacted by moments of relationships. I can recall on example of a conference in 2023. I crossed paths with an individual who was a student at that time. While I was still figuring out where I was headed in my transition, I was dressing in a very androgynous to feminine manner. Leaving the session at which we crossed paths, the student commented on how differently they would have felt as an undergraduate to see faculty dressed as I was. I felt affirmed in the choices I was making in how to present. We have crossed paths only once since then, but the impression I made and the affirming comment I received have both remained strongly in my mind ever since.

What is one hard lesson you learned in this past year that contributed to your growth?

This is not the first time I have learned this particular lesson: the "perfect moment" to take action will never come. We reach a point at which we decide to act. There will be consequences and there will be things beyond our control. The best we can do is prepare.

What is one competency or skill you hope to develop in 2026 and beyond?

To better organize my projects and my time. Despite objective success for 30 years at Hopkins (on July 1), I feel like I have mostly "jumped at whatever opportunities happened to seem best" rather than having a clear plan. To make the most impact for the next stage of my career, I have to have a clear idea of what I want to do, why, how, and when.

What inspires you?

Seeing others grow in ways that surprise them, particularly when they realize they can do more than they may have ever thought in a specific area of their lives.

At OutGrowth, we believe in preparing the next generation of leaders. What is one resource you'd recommend to those looking to carve out the time for growth in the next year?

My friend and colleague, Sarah Elkins, has a book and podcast called, "Your Stories Don't Define You, How You Tell Them Will."

What's next? What are you excited about in the coming year?

Learning to use AI effectively and efficiently to enhance my teaching by developing and managing a series of interrelated ethical and managerial challenges for students in multiple classes I teach, and then seeing if I can extend from challenges in a major medical center to other "worlds" that I develop. In many ways, this is channeling my inner 15 year old self who wanted to write code for expansive role playing games. The roles and games are much different than what I, as a dungeon master for Dungeons & Dragons, dreamt of in my early teens. But I am one of the few people in the world lucky enough to be doing something that is similar to what I dreamt of and was passionate about when I was 15 and getting paid more than enough to support myself while doing that.