The Center for Health and Wellbeing (CHW) at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs has selected eight undergraduates as the 2009 Adel Mahmoud Global Health Scholars. The scholars, all juniors, will receive financial support for travel and research to pursue global health-related internships and senior thesis research.

Funded by a grant from The Merck Company Foundation, the Mahmoud Global Health Scholars program is based at CHW and was established in 2007 to foster new opportunities to engage Princeton undergraduates in global health policy. It was created in honor of Adel Mahmoud M.D., Ph.D. for his pioneering work in global health. Mahmoud has appointments in the Wilson School and Princeton’s Department of Molecular Biology.

The eight 2009 Adel Mahmoud Global Health Scholars are:

• Mathias Esmann ’11 is a Woodrow Wilson School major pursuing a certificate in French Language and Culture. Co-founder of the NGO “Global Minimum”, he and his colleagues have spent two summers providing insecticide-treated mosquito nets to over 30 villages in Sierra Leone, pairing the distribution efforts with intensive education to ensure proper net usage by all village members. He will focus his thesis research on the control of a common yet deadly infectious disease such as malaria, HIV/AIDS, measles, pneumonia, diarrheal diseases or tuberculosis. Committed to building on pre-existing health infrastructure as a means to improve and expand health care delivery, Esmann seeks to work in close collaboration with local health authorities and NGOs.

• Josh Franklin ’11 is an Anthropology major enrolled in two certificate programs: Russian Language and Culture, and Portuguese Language and Culture. For his senior thesis he will conduct a comparative analysis of access to healthcare technology and the right to health. This research builds on fieldwork he began this past summer in Brazil, studying access to complex, high-cost treatments and the right to health – a constitutionally guaranteed right that has prompted patients to initiate legal actions against the government demanding health services. Combining an exploration of how healthcare is organized at the judicial and policy levels, and by working to understand patients’ highly individualized experiences, Franklin will address policy challenges faced in the establishment of health systems.

• Irfan Kherani ’11 is a Molecular Biology major concurrently studying Global Health and Health Policy, and Theatre and Dance. He intends to research H1N1 vaccine implementation, starting this coming spring with a research study analyzing the implementation processes and challenges of the H1N1 vaccine in school-aged children in New Jersey. In the early summer he will intern at the World Health Organization’s flu and vaccine department, followed by an independent research study of H1N1 vaccine implementation procedures and challenges in one or more southern hemisphere nations (which will be at or near the start of the annual flu season).

• Daniel Echelman ’11 is a Chemistry major pursuing a certificate in Global Health and Health Policy. He will use program support to assist in, and to research, breast cancer awareness outreaches in Nakuru, Kenya. The fieldwork will complement his laboratory-based senior thesis project, and it is an extension of a breast cancer awareness pilot project he conducted in cooperation with a local NGO this past summer. Echelman intends to carry out an epidemiological study of breast cancer awareness and outreach efforts, and to examine their efficacy through a cohort study of two neighborhoods.

• Brooke Peterson ’11 is a Woodrow Wilson School major enrolled in the Global Health and Health Policy certificate program. With her funding she will conduct thesis research on the intersection of health and development projects, building on her past coursework and recent summer experience delineating the health consequences of the proposed dams on the Mekong River in Southeast Asia. Her goals are to draw attention to the detrimental effects that infrastructural development projects often have on human health, and to work with local people, companies, international banks and governing bodies to ensure that future development projects not only maintain local health conditions, but even improve them.

• Lea Steinacker ’11 is a Woodrow Wilson School major pursuing a certificate in African Studies. Her work will focus the link between sexualized violence and HIV, addressing the lack of reproductive health in conflict-affected areas and the resulting global health consequences. While studying abroad in Cairo in the spring of 2010, Steinacker will investigate reproductive rights in the context of Islamic culture and traditions. Over the summer she will conduct research on the implementation of international policy to combat sexualized violence and to put reproductive rights into effect.

• Lisa Tom ’11 is an Anthropology major pursuing a Woodrow Wilson School certificate. She intends to research rural-urban disparities and healthcare systems in the developing world, examining the economic and infrastructural disadvantages facing rural patients, as well as the cultural clashes between traditional and modern medicine. After observing these issues in Bolivia last summer, Tom will focus her senior thesis research on China, where she will conduct an anthropological analysis of one or more barriers to access for people who live outside major cities. Such barriers may include faith in traditional medicines or social rules of engagement.

• Alyse Wheelock ’11 is an Anthropology major pursuing a certificate in Global Health and Health Policy. She will use her funding support to extend research she conducted last summer on the high mortality rates due to opportunistic infection among patients at an HIV/AIDS clinic in Guatemala. For her thesis research, also to be carried out in Central America, Wheelock will explore questions of the impact of new technology on temporality and meaning of opportunistic infections, visibility and recognition of different infections within institutions, social networks, and relationships of care, and the effects of the idea of HIV as the “main diagnosis” on the lived experience of people diagnosed with opportunistic infections.

“Thanks to the generous support from the Merck Company Foundation, eight more outstanding Princeton students will pursue ambitious health-related research projects on topics of their choosing,” said Christina Paxson, dean of the Woodrow Wilson School.  “Our hope is that this early exposure to field research on health and health care will cultivate future leaders in global health.”  

As part of the program, up to eight juniors are selected each fall by a faculty selection committee for the scholars program, which will run until 2011. The rigorous application and selection process focuses on both academic performance and interest in global health issues.

This past summer the 2008 Scholars researched cholera in India and Bangladesh, access to hepatitis C treatment in Brazil, multilateral malaria programs in Europe , the ecology of human helminths and protozoa in Ecuador, and the development and distribution of vaccines for meningococcal meningitis in Europe. These students are currently integrating their summer research into their senior theses.

The Mahmoud Global Health Scholars program also features a lecture series, which brings a leading researcher and/or practitioner in global health policy to Princeton annually. The third lecture is currently being planned and will take place in the spring of 2010.

The Center for Health and Wellbeing is an interdisciplinary center within the Woodrow Wilson School, which seeks to foster research and teaching on the multiple aspects of health and wellbeing in both developed and developing countries.

The Merck Company Foundation is a U.S.-based, private charitable foundation, established in 1957 and funded entirely by the global research-driven pharmaceutical company Merck. The mission of the Foundation is to support organizations and innovative programs that: expand access to medicines, vaccines and quality health care; build capacity in the biomedical and health sciences; promote environments that encourage innovation, economic growth and development in a fair and ethical context; and support communities where Merck has a major presence. For more information, visit www.merckphilanthropy.com.