May 19, 2014

Thirteen Gillings School of Global Public Health students will study and train abroad this summer, thanks to generous individuals and global organizations in the area.

The students are Bernie Agala, Julia Brasileiro, Caitlin Fross, Chrissy Godwin, Brianne Kallam, Smisha Kaysin, Tori Lebrun, Emily Mangone, Emily Nicholson, Kathryn Peebles, Kate Sheahan, Caitlin Snyder and Neha Verma.

Agala

Agala

 
Brasileiro

Brasileiro

Fross

Fross

Godwin

Godwin

Kallam

Kallam

 
Kaysin

Kaysin

Lebrun

Lebrun

Mangone

Mangone

 
Nicholson

Nicholson

Peebles

Peebles

Sheahan

Sheahan

 
Snyder

Snyder

Verma

Verma

Their internships, described below, are offered through collaborations between the Gillings Global Gateway, formerly the Gillings School’s Office of Global Public Health, and area partners.

  • Bernie Agala, doctoral student in health policy and management, will work as a MEASURE Evaluation fellow to improve monitoring and evaluation for health and international development.
  • Julia Brasileiro, master’s candidate in maternal and child health (MCH), will identify data sources in Pro Mujer’s health programs that can be used to evaluate health outcomes. She also will conduct an impact evaluation of Pro Mujer’s pilot prepaid health program in Nicaragua.
  • Caitlin Fross, Master of Science in Public Health candidate in health policy and management (HPM), will join a health systems-strengthening project with CIDRZ that will study why health care follow-up does not occur.
  • Chrissy Godwin, doctoral candidate in MCH, will work on a USAID-funded project at IntraHealth to assess health-care referral systems in the West Bank.
  • Brianne Kallam, master’s candidate in MCH, and Tori Lebrun, master’s candidate in HPM, will work at a Blood:Water Mission clinic in Kitgum, Uganda. They will help assess HIV clinical services and maternal and child health services, conduct community outreach, and collect and analyze data.
  • Smisha Kaysin, doctoral candidate in MCH, will work with FHI360 to find effective ways to use technology to improve quality and delivery of health care in developing countries.
  • Emily Mangone, doctoral candidate in HPM, will work on an FHI360 project to determine whether different sociometric sampling techniques can generate accurate information about ways that sexual- and drug-related disease are transmitted.
  • Emily Nicholson, master’s candidate in the Public Health Leadership Program (PHLP), will work with IntraHealth’s Capacity Plus, a global project focused on strengthening the health workforce needed to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.
  • Kathryn Peebles, Master of Public Health candidate in Health Behavior (HB), will work with Dr. Michael Vinkoor at CIDRZ on a study to assess the prevalence of co-infection with HIV and Hepatitis B viruses.
  • Kate Sheahan, doctoral candidate in HPM, will work with an IntraHealth team to write a research protocol and develop a tool to track government commitments related to human resources for health.
  • Caitlin Snyder, master’s candidate in HB, will work with IntraHealth’s Senegal project team on a gender audit of ongoing interventions.
  • Neha Verma, Bachelor of Science in Public Health candidate in Nutrition (NUTR), will use the Bender Curry Undergraduate Family Award to travel to Tecpan, Guatemala, developing her doula skills and understanding of women’s health by working with a midwife to provide care for women and their newborns.

“The Gillings Global Gateway exists to simplify and accelerate partnerships such as these,” said Julie MacMillan, MPH, interim executive director of the Gillings Global Gateway.  “We are grateful both to the students and sponsors who participate in these excellent programs.”

About our sponsors

The Global Gateway celebrates 10 years of partnership this year with FHI360, a nonprofit human development organization dedicated for more than 40 years to improving lives in sustainable ways by advancing integrated, locally driven solutions.

FHI360 staff members include experts in health, education, nutrition, environment, economic development, civil society, gender equality, youth, research and technology and work in more than 60 countries around the world.

By summer’s end, 23 Gillings School students will have participated as FHI360-UNC fellows.

FHI360 supports the UNC-FHI360 fellows for one full year, including stipend and fees. The fellows are placed with the organization’s investigators to work on specific research projects.

This summer also marks the fifth year of the School’s collaboration with IntraHealth; third year (contingent on funding) with MEASURE Evaluation, based at UNC’s Carolina Population Center; and second year with The Centre for Infectious Disease Research in Zambia (CIDRZ).

Intrahealth is a nongovernmental organization dedicated to improving health care in developing countries through strengthening health workers and the systems that support them. The organization addresses challenges in family planning and reproductive health; HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis; maternal, newborn and child health; and malaria, has active field programs in more than 20 countries, and in 2014, will have helped train 21 Gillings School students as IntraHealth Summer Fellows. 

MEASURE Evaluation is the USAID Global Health Bureau’s primary vehicle for supporting improvements in monitoring and evaluation in population, health and nutrition worldwide. The group also is funded by PEPFAR to work on HIV and AIDS programs, identifying data needs, collecting and analyzing technically sound data, and using that data for health decision-making. Annually, one Gillings student receives support from MEASURE throughout the year.

CIDRZ, an independent, nongovernmental health organization established in Zambia in 2001, has hosted four students in its two-year partnership with the Gillings School. CIDRZ experts develop research, health services and training initiatives in HIV/ AIDS prevention, care and treatment; tuberculosis prevention and control; and women’s and children’s health.

“These sustained and generous fellowships and internships provide our students with the opportunity to advance their training while at UNC, at the same time they work with their local and global colleagues on some of the largest challenges in global health,” said Margaret Bentley, PhD, Carla Smith Chamblee Distinguished Professor of nutrition and associate dean for global health at the Gillings School.

The Gillings Global Gateway also is celebrating relationships with the following organizations and individuals, who are providing Gillings students with new internship opportunities this year:

  • Sheila Leatherman, MSW, Gillings Visiting Professor and research professor in health policy and management at the Gillings School, has provided funding for a student to work with Pro Mujer,  a development organization offering women in Argentina, Bolivia, Mexico, Nicaragua and Peru an integrated package of microfinance services, primary health care, and business and health education. (Leatherman has supported a number of internships for Gillings School students over a period of several years, but this is the first year she has identified the opportunity with Pro Mujer.)
  • Blood:Water Mission partners with African grassroots organizations to address the HIV/AIDS and water crises. Since the organization’s launch in 2004, it has helped raise $22 million and supported nearly a million people in 11 countries.
  • The Bender Curry Undergraduate Family Award, established by Deborah Bender, PhD, emeritus professor of health policy and management at the Gillings School, is designed to support a summer internship in a Spanish-speaking Latin American country for an undergraduate with limited global travel and work experience.

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

 

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