Amowitz describes her childhood in Greenville, North Carolina, including the antisemtisim she faced from classmates; despite this, she continued to be open about her Jewish identity. When she was eleven years old, her parents started a synagogue in the area so she could be bat mitzvahed. The stories of the oppression her grandparents faced in Russia, learning about the Holocaust, and her own experiences with discrimination influenced her decision to become an advocacy worker. Still, she was unsure how to do it. While working toward her public health degree, she attended lectures concerning the Cambodian Thai refugee camps, and she realized that she wanted to work in the human rights field. After she graduated from medical school, she spent twelve weeks in Africa, just as the Rwandan crisis was breaking out. She returned a month later and witnessed the violence and destruction there. This experience concretized her desire to advocate for access to health care in war-torn countries. Upon returning to the United States, Amowitz tried to find the best way to help, eventually speaking to the Harvard School of Public Health ex-dean, who put her in touch with Physicians for Human Rights. They hired her to do their human rights investigations. Amowitz conducted population-based studies on human rights violations perpetrated by the Taliban against women. She also studied the prevalence of sexual violence in Sierra Leone and taught human rights courses to medical students in Kosovo. Amowitz recognized that her work often subverted her expectations as a mother but noted that most of her family and friends have adjusted to her career. Amowitz's biggest challenge was placing her experiential knowledge of human rights into an academic framework. She believes her most significant impact lay in creating a path to working as an activist for new medical students/residents. Amowtiz hopes that her work would eventually help mold policies and improve the methodology of her field.