The Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs has selected six undergraduates as the 2008-09 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 six 2008-09 Adel Mahmoud Global Health Scholars are:

•    Karolina Brook ’10 is a Chemistry major and a Linguistics certificate student from South Africa. Brook’s past experiences include conducting public health research at NYC’s Bellevue Hospital and working on Pseudorabies virus as a model for Herpes simplex virus in a Princeton lab. She plans to focus her senior thesis on the scientific, public health and health policy aspects of infectious disease, and she will likely conduct a combination of laboratory and field research.

•    Alex Gertner ’10 is an Anthropology major who was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and later moved to the U.S. Gertner has previously engaged in AIDS activism, pharmaceutical research and environmental lobbying. He will use the scholarship to continue research he began last summer on pharmaceutical policy in Brazil, examining growing demands for government-sponsored pharmaceutical treatments and investigating the role of intellectual property policies in drug development. Gertner is a member and a student representative of the new undergraduate Program in Global Health and Health Policy.

•    Brittney Johnson ’10 is a History of Science major from Bryant, Arkansas. As a certified emergency medical technician (EMT), her interests include improving emergency medical services and pre-hospital care by implementing social entrepreneurship techniques, and developing innovative and sustainable solutions to global health problems. Johnson plans to research the first self-sustainable ambulance service in Mumbai, India, as a model to be replicated in the Philippines.

•    Raaj Mehta ’10 is an Ecology and Evolutionary Biology major and a Woodrow Wilson School certificate student from Great Falls, Virginia. He is interested in the ecology of infectious disease, and his past experiences include lab and policy research. For his senior thesis Mehta intends to explore alternatives to pharmaceutical treatment and eradication of pathogens. He will focus on cases of co-infection and will complement data analysis in Princeton with summer field research in Peru.

•    Danielle Rochlin ’10 is a Molecular Biology major and a Woodrow Wilson School certificate student from Pacific Palisades, California. Her interests include the relationship between the scientific and policy aspects of medicine. She has coordinated clinical trials relating to spinal medicine and interned last summer at the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. For her research she plans to investigate programs and policies relating to vaccination.

•    Ashley Schoettle ’10 is a Woodrow Wilson School major from Palo Alto, California. Since high school she has been active in malaria-focused programs and research, including starting a nonprofit to raise money for malaria prevention and conducting field work in Ghana. She now intends to pursue a policy-focused research internship examining the impacts of different institutional actors’ malaria control programs on prevention practices. Schoettle is a member and a student representative of the new undergraduate Program in Global Health and Health Policy.

“We are delighted with the caliber of this year’s Mahmoud Scholars and the diversity of interests in health policy they represent,” said Christina Paxson, Director of CHW and a Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School. “This program provides an excellent means by which students can explore academic research as well as career opportunities in domestic or international health affairs.”

As part of the program, up to six 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 2007 Scholars researched HIV/AIDS treatment in Mexico, vaccine implementation policy in the Philippines and AIDS prevention efforts in India. 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 second lecture will take place in the spring of 2009 and will feature Julio Frenk, MD, PhD, MPH. Dr. Frenk was Minister of Health of Mexico from 2000 to 2006, and he became the new dean of the Harvard School of Public Health in January 2009.

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.