Faculty and Staff Highlights Spring 2026
GHS has had a busy 2026 so far, with many accomplishments to celebrate.
This was a record year for teaching awards for GHS faculty. In addition to a successful promotion to Professor of Instruction starting in September 2026, Dr. Sarah Rodriguez was named the Charles Deering McCormick Distinguished Professor of Instruction, Northwestern University’s highest honor in undergraduate teaching. Dr. Beatriz Reyes won the Canvas Hall of Fame 2026 Excellence in Community and Accessibility award—a student-nominated award recognizing faculty for building courses that are both engaging and inclusive (attach photo with caption). And Dr. Noelle Sullivan was named Outstanding Educator of the Year by Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine, Center for Global Health Education for 2025-2026.
In the wake of the US war in Iran, Dr. Elham Hoominfar has been a pivotal voice analyzing the wider environmental and social impacts of the war, sharing her critical analysis and insights to lend depth to public understandings of the wider effects of the conflict. This included co-organizing and participating in a Middle East and North African Studies colloquium on “Iran Protests Contextualized: A Primer with Northwestern Faculty” in January, speaking in March at a Buffett Institute workshop, the “Epic Fury Panel,” about
environmental impacts of the conflict in Iran (pictured right), and guest speaking on the “Hitting Left” podcast on March 27th. Further, Dr. Hoominfar published an article in The International Journal of Justice and Sustainability, entitled, “Environmental injustice, marginalization and resistance: an intersectional analysis from Iran,” and two op-eds for the media outlet Iran Draft: “Structural Crisis and the Expectation of Revolution” in January, and “When hope outpaces calculation: mechanisms of collective perceptual error in a moment of protest” in February.
Faculty have also been involved in other important activities and initiatives. Dr. Peter Locke has been working
with a GHS research assistant to develop a new course, “AI and Health,” which will roll out in the spring of 2027, and is headed to Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina in summer 2026 to collaborate with our partner institutions in the region. Meanwhile Dr. Beatriz Reyes (pictured right) developed a new Warren Summer Bridge course, “What is Global Health?” which provides high schoolers interested in studying global health with skills and background needed to engage theories of health, power, and ethics, and to analyze social determinants of health, in order to set them up for success in their undergraduate pursuits.
With support from the Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities, Dr. Rodriguez took 15 students (pictured left) to London over spring break for the class “Pregnancy & Childbirth, 1750 to the Present.” While in London, the class looked at primary materials related to the history of pregnancy and childbirth across multiple places, including the London Archives, the Wellcome Collection, the Science Museum, the Victorian and Albert Museum, and the Old Operating Theatre (pictured left). In addition, students heard from two scholars regarding their work on this topic and went on a walking tour with a historian to learn about the history of medicine in London. Students took photographs and made written observations about what they saw, and the primary materials they witnessed—such as birth scrolls, forceps, protective amulets, and lying-in hospital registers—then became the basis for their final projects. 
Dr. Noelle Sullivan provided three talks over the winter and spring: an invited lecture for the Northwestern Alumnae Association’s Continuing Education program on Dr. Paul Farmer’s legacy for their course “Voices from the Past: What can they say to today’s world?” in January; an invited talk at the University of Illinois Chicago’s Department of Anthropology entitled “Navigating a Diagnostic Grey Zone: An Auto-Ethnographic Account of a Fractured Medical System,” delivered in April; and an invited lecture for the Northwestern Alumni Association’s A Day with Northwestern entitled “The Murky Ethics of Good Intentions: Unintended Consequences and a Path for Doing Good Better,” also in April (pictured right).
GHS is grateful to adjunct professors Drs. Michael Diamond, Matilda Stubbs, and Daniel Wozniczka for offering dynamic courses for GHS this year as well. Our students’ horizons were certainly expanded 
by their expertise this year!
Finally, GHS’s Assistant Director Greg Buchanan hit a major milestone this year, as he was acknowledged for 20 years of service at Northwestern, all of them within GHS (pictured left). Greg has been a pivotal thought partner and supporter of students, faculty, and staff throughout the life of the program. Congratulations!