The Education and Training team at the Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health (VIGH) collaborates with over 50 students annually on various global health education and research projects. This academic year, the VIGH Student Advisory Council (SAC), chaired by Becca Lee MPH ’22, led the student organization to host the 12th annual Global Health Case Competition and the 5th annual Global Health Symposium. VIGH SAC is a student-led organization that brings together diverse students interested in global health to foster cross-disciplinary student networking and collaboration.
The Global Health Case Competition, co-chaired by Noor Ali MPH ’22 and Hilly Yehoshua BS ’22, brings together undergraduate, graduate, and professional students from diverse disciplines and backgrounds to collaborate in developing innovative solutions to a global health problem. This year’s focus was “Development and Challenges of Hospice and Palliative Care in China.” Almost 100 students competed in the week-long event that culminated in two rounds of project proposal presentations. Expert judges for the competition were Carolyn Audet, Kimberly Beiting, Xiu Cravens, Gilbert Gonzales, Ralf Habermann, Douglas Heimburger, Alexandria Luu, Marie Martin, Xiao-ou Shu, Victoria Umutoni, Christopher Wahlfeld, and Danxia Yu. Elizabeth Rose served as the Keynote Speaker. Student organizers, who began working on this event in September 2021, included Jeremy Chiang, Jiayue Liu, Chidimma Ndubuisi Oluavu, Varun Reddy, Grace West, Kevin Nguyen, Shahar Hartman, Dev Patel, Anisa Haffizulla, Ryan Dalforno, Bethlehem Daniel, Duretti Ahmad, Janet Mariadoss, Nitya Kari, and Shalini Thinakaran.
The Global Health Symposium, organized by Chidiogo Nwakoby BS ’22 and Meira Kowalski BS ‘24, is an opportunity for Vanderbilt students, staff, faculty, and community members to share their global health work and build networks. Twenty-seven individuals presented posters throughout the evening (a full list of posters and abstracts can be found on the symposium webpage). Ann Green was the Keynote Speaker, and Heather Jordan, Christian Ketel, and Stefan Koester were selected to give oral presentations of their work. Student organizers included Sarah Platkin, Katherine Zhong, Sophie Goldenberg, Kush Chaudhari, Chandu Kona, Lilly He, Chinenye Iroajanma, Teresa Xu, Anish Katta, Corinne Hunnicutt, Ivy Han, Iraj Qureshi, Gene Kim, Victoria Li, Shalini Thinakaran, Lipika Narisetti, Nitya Kari, and Rishik Bethi.
Finally, we want to recognize and thank the students who collaborated on education and research projects throughout the year that included data analysis and manuscript writing related to medical student research projects and medical student immersion courses; program evaluations for faculty training programs in teaching methods and mentorship as well as grant administrator training programs; writing weekly newsletters; organizing events for alumni networking and continuing education, and developing faculty training workshops in teaching and mentoring. We are grateful for the support of Angus Chatham, Anika Mahajan, Annesa Dey, Chidimma Ndubuisi Oluavu, Chilesi Uriri, Christopher Bozorgmehr, Connie Hu, Duretti Ahmad, Ellie Han, Juliana Yang, Kendal Myers, Krish Shah, Kush Chaudhari, Margaret "Meg" Mercante, Megan Croly, Megan Davis, Meira Kowalski, Mikayla Alsopp, Noor Ali, Olawunmi "Taiye" Winful, Tanisha Stephens, Teresa Xu, and Tyjah Johnson.