A Connection That Changed the Game
by Amy Rosenberg & Emily Brognano
In September 2025, as she was embarking on her senior year, Kianna Hill went to the inaugural Women Impact Now! (WIN!) Athletics Leadership Forum, hoping to learn more about a career in medicine. At the event, which connects women student-athletes with alumni working in fields they hope to enter, Hill met family physician Dana Mann, J99, M05.
Within weeks, Hill, A26, was shadowing Mann in her practice. Hill followed Mann throughout a full day, watching her care for patients ranging from a four-year-old child to a senior in her 80s. Hill was impressed by the breadth of Mann’s knowledge and the way she practiced medicine, bringing her expertise to bear while remaining, as Hill describes it, “so compassionate and present” with each patient.
Hill was also taking in the larger picture: how Mann had built a life that included medicine, family, and work she clearly loved. Hill remembers thinking: “Wow, this is who I want to be.”
The two had already discovered at the forum a point of common ground beyond medicine: they had both played soccer at Tufts, years apart, both under Coach Martha Whiting. Now, as the shadowing continued, their affinity deepened.
“We clicked and bonded,” Hill says. By day's end, Hill knew she wanted to work for Mann and, weeks later, Mann offered Hill a job.
“She Makes Me Want to Go to Work”
Hill now works full-time as a medical assistant in Mann’s family medicine practice while studying for the MCAT, the standardized exam for application to medical school, which Hill hopes to take early next year.
The job in Mann’s practice, Hill says, has become an extension of the shadowing experience that first drew her to Mann. She watches how Mann approaches patients, asks questions, and takes in as much as she can. “She makes me want to go to work,” Hill says. “Every day I’m learning from how Dr. Mann thinks through a patient’s care and how she connects with people. She’s the kind of doctor I hope to be.”
Hill’s eagerness to learn is exactly what Mann hopes to encourage. Mann, who also completed her family medicine residency at Tufts, says that, in recent years, her medical assistants have often been people preparing for careers in healthcare, and she deliberately turns the job into a learning experience.
“I tell my medical assistants from the beginning that I’ll teach them as we go,” Mann says. “The more they want to learn, the more I’ll teach them. I love it!”
Her commitment to mentoring is partly rooted in her own experience. “I remember being at that stage myself, knowing I wanted to go into medicine but still figuring out what focus would be right for me,” she says. “Now, when I meet young people who are considering medicine, I want to take them under my wing and let them see what the work is really like. That kind of exposure can help you understand what draws you to medicine and where you might fit.”
“These students inspire me to give them all I can,” adds Mann.
A WIN-ning Formula
With Hill, Mann’s impulse to mentor is reinforced by their shared background as former Tufts athletes. Mann says college sports taught her discipline, balance, teamwork, and how to respond to coaching. “All of those talents that you learn from sports you carry into your profession,” Mann says.
Hill points especially to the structure and support she found on the women’s soccer team. “You’re surrounded by those who share the same goals and passions, girls who want to excel academically and athletically,” she says. “You learn how to fit more into your schedule and how to get through hard times—skills I know I’ll need in medical school.”
WIN!, meanwhile, gave Hill access to the kind of alumni network she had seen more readily around some men’s teams. “Sometimes those connections are harder to find in women’s sports,” she says. The leadership forum gave women athletes a place to build relationships with alumni and see possible paths into their professions.
For Hill, that path is now tangible. She drives about 40 miles each way to work with Mann—a commute she says she “didn’t even think twice about.” Having a mentor “who was in sports, went to Tufts, and who I can see myself in,” she says, “has been the best opportunity I could have imagined coming out of college.”
Mann, who is returning for the second annual WIN! forum, hopes to create more such opportunities. “I would like to try to help as many women athletes from Tufts as I can,” she says.
The 2026 WIN! Athletics Leadership Forum will be held on Friday, Oct. 9 in Joyce Cummings Center on the university's Medford/Somerville campus. More than 40 alumni will be in attendance, serving on panels and hosting industry networking tables, to welcome women student-athletes for the occasion. Visit the WIN! Athletics Initiative site to learn more about the project and see photos from the 2025 forum.