May 25, 2016

A global intern conducts field work for her practicum. (Photo by Amy Patel)

Global intern Amy Patel (r) conducts field work in Guanajuato, Mexico, for her practicum. (Contributed photo)

This year, eight students from the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health were awarded global internships administered by the Gillings Global GatewayTM.

The student recipients are:

FHI 360-UNC Public Health Fellowship

  • Dominika Fiolna, health policy and management
  • Rebecca Hershow, health behavior
  • Hannah Silverstein, maternal and child health

IntraHealth International Summer Fellows

  • Michael DeFranco, health behavior
  • Willa Dong, health behavior
  • Kristan Rosenthal, maternal and child health

Microfinance-Health Internship (with Pro Mujer)

  • Megan Barry, maternal and child health

Bender Curry Family Undergraduate Public Health Global Internship Award

  • Angel Lopez-Collazo, health policy and management

Rebecca Hershow, a doctoral student and new FHI 360-UNC Fellow, will support the implementation of a study on the relationship between gender-based violence and HIV among key populations (men who have sex with men, female sex workers and transgender women).

“The goal of this research is to improve HIV prevention, care and treatment program and policies and identify interventions to address gender-based violence,” Hershow explains. “The FHI 360-UNC Fellowship will be immensely beneficial because it will allow me to build my global health experience and contribute meaningfully to the field of public health.”

mHero is a two-way, mobile phone-based communication system that uses basic text messaging to connect ministries of health and health workers. (Image from www.mhero.org/)

mHero is a two-way, mobile phone-based communication system that connects ministries of health and health workers. (Image from www.mhero.org/)

Michael DeFranco, a first-year graduate student, is a newly named IntraHealth Summer Fellow. Before coming to UNC Gillings, he served with the Peace Corps in Guatemala and worked for more than eight years as an emergency room (ER) trauma nurse in Boston. He still takes on occasional ER shifts at the UNC Health Care Campus in Hillsborough, North Carolina.

“I need to stay local because of my family, so the best thing about this fellowship is that it empowers my research to achieve a global reach even though I won’t be traveling.” shares DeFranco. “I’m going to work with the digital health department at IntraHealth to evaluate a collaborative app called mHero, which rolled out in West Africa in the middle of the Ebola outbreak. From the beginning, it was hugely beneficial to the public health professionals who were responding to the crisis.”

Peggy Bentley, PhD, Carla Smith Chamblee Distinguished Professor of global nutrition and associate dean for global health at UNC Gillings, thanks Gillings Global Gateway program coordinator Naya Villarreal, MPH, for facilitating the award process each year.

“These sustained fellowships and internships provide wonderful global health research and practice experiences for students throughout our School,” Bentley says. “We are extremely grateful to the two participating international non-governmental organizations in the Triangle – FHI 360 and IntraHealth International – as well as to the donors whose support of these opportunities demonstrates their generous commitment to our students.”


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Gillings School of Global Public Health contact: David Pesci, director of communications, (919) 962-2600 or dpesci@unc.edu

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