Fall 2025 Student Highlights
The summer and fall saw some substantial accomplishments by our fantastic Global Health Studies students and alumni, it’s hard to know where to start!
Two GHS students, Justine Liu and Klara Vinn (pictured left), were each awarded the prestigious Obama-Chesky Voyager Scholarship for Public Service, supporting students who are passionate about serving communities and imagining new possibilities for public service. This is the third year in a row that a GHS student received this prestigious scholarship!
GHS and Accelerated Public Health Program (APHP) alumna Lyra Johnson (BA 2024, MPH 2025) and colleagues published an article, “Caregiver perspectives on TB-related stigma experienced by young children,” from research she conducted as an APHP student at the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa.
GHS student Zori Warren received GHS funding to do a summer project on the effects of doula care on maternal morbidity in the USA, results of which she presented at Global Health Day in November 2025 (see below). Zori had previously been a participant on the London Program with Dr. Sarah Rodriguez, where she received substantial training on archival research.
Shinyi Ding’s paper, “Reading the ‘TBA’ in Central America during the ICM/USAID Grant to Expand the Role fo the Midwife: 1970-1979” won the inaugural 2025 Undergraduate Archival Research Project Prize sponsored by Northwestern University Libraries. This paper was a culminating project from her participation in our innovative London Wellcome study abroad archival research program, and blossomed after careful mentoring with Dr. Sarah Rodriguez.
GHS students and alumni participated in a variety of ways at the Robert J. Havey, MD Institute for Global Health’s 14th annual Global Health Day.
Several GHS students participated in the Intramural Global Health Case Competition, which aimed to tackle pediatric malaria in Nigeria. One GHS student, Diya Bhakta, and GHS alum now MD student Sarah Huang (pictured right),
were part of the team that ultimately won the competition; other GHS competitors included Alejandro Chavarria Gonzalez, Tyler Huang, Louis Lee, Aryan Kalluvila, Hannah Paik, Kendra Phillips, Alexa Rowe, Erika Ruiz-Yamamoto, Sanjana Shankar, and Preena Shroff. Congrats to all our students for all the hard work they put into the competition!
Further, several of our students and alums presented posters about their original research:
- Ruth Debono (GHS student), “The creation and implementation of a health equity course in the Swiss School of Public Health.”
- Alec Easter (GHS student), “Validation of the sexual relationships and activities questionnaire (SRA-Q) in Burkina Faso, West Africa.”
- Zoey Hall (GHS alumna, APHP student), “Understanding gaps and opportunities in pediatric palliative care across ECSWA
- Molly Heaney (GHS student), “Family income, sex, and adolescent mental health: Analysis of the UK Millennium Cohort Study.” Her work received an honorable mention in the Best Student Poster category!
- Alexa Rowe (GHS student), “Evaluate the effect of inadequate representation on dermatology education and its impact on the quality of care for patients of color.”
- Sanjana Shankar (GHS student), “Combatting maternal mortality in rural India: A mobile solution.”
- Nikhil Sriram, MD student & GHS alum, “Too late to treat? Drivers of cancer care delays in Nigeria: Insights from the COST-FIN trial.”
- Valentina Velasco, MD student & GHS Alum, “Baseline economic hardships and financial distress among cancer patients in Nigeria: Results from the COST-FIN trial.”
- Zori Warren (GHS student) “Doula care and how maternal age may determine its impacts on reducing maternal morbidity rates in the United States.”
Thanks to Dr. Bill Leonard and to GHS’s Assistant Director Greg Buchanan for supporting our students and alums, and their contributions to making the day a success! And congrats to all the GHS students and alumni who were part of the day’s success!