Spotlights

Visitor Spotlight: Soumitra Bhuyan
Sept. 12, 2023

Bhuyan discusses his work on chronic disease management and health information systems as well as his overarching goal of improving population health.

Visitor Spotlight: Tanisha Spratt
May 2, 2023
Author
Written by Aimee Bronfeld, Center for Health and Wellbeing

Tanisha Spratt, a medical sociologist and visiting research scholar at CHW, explores how racism, class, and other social determinants of health impact health outcomes.

Visitor Spotlight: Ori Heffetz
Jan. 3, 2023
Author
Written by Aimee Bronfeld, Center for Health and Wellbeing

In this Spotlight, Ori Heffetz, an economist and visiting research scholar at CHW, discusses the multi-faceted dimensions of human welfare.

Spotlight: Mustafa Basij-Rasikh
Oct. 3, 2022
Author
Written by Aimee Bronfeld, Center for Health and Wellbeing

CHW affiliate Mustafa Basij-Rasikh discusses his research interests and passion for improving health outcomes in fragile, conflict-affected settings across the world.

Visitor Spotlight: Colleen Carey
June 7, 2022
Author
Written by Aimee Bronfeld, Center for Health and Wellbeing

In a recent interview, Colleen Carey discussed her work on the United States health care industry. Her research examines government-managed health insurance markets, physician behavior, and other dynamics that influence domestic health policy, equity, and outcomes.

 

Visitor Spotlight: Emma Zang
May 5, 2022

Emma Zang, a demographer and visiting research scholar at Princeton’s Center for Health and Wellbeing (CHW), has long been intrigued by the relationships between health, family and inequality. In this Spotlight, Zang explains how her upbringing, cultural influences – and even a few imaginary siblings – affected the course of her education and career.

 

Postdoc Spotlight: Benjamin Rice
Nov. 30, 2021
Author
Written by Aimee Bronfeld, Center for Health and Wellbeing
In a recent interview, Benjamin Rice, a Global Health Program affiliate and Presidential Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Princeton’s Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, chronicles his journey to Madagascar and beyond for research exploring pathogen diversity and novel ways of alleviating disease burden around the world.
Faculty Spotlight: Heather Howard
Sept. 28, 2021
Author
Written by Aimee Bronfeld, Center for Health and Wellbeing
Both a scholar and practitioner, Professor Heather Howard joined Princeton with a unique background blending politics, policy, law and public health. In this Spotlight, she shares milestones and mentors, challenges and opportunities, and her underlying – and unrelenting – commitment to advancing health equity throughout the U.S. and the world.
Faculty Spotlight: Arun Hendi
July 30, 2021
Author
Written by Aimee Bronfeld, Center for Health and Wellbeing
In a recent interview, CHW affiliate Arun Hendi shares his fascination with population dynamics while highlighting some of his latest research examining geographic, socioeconomic and racial inequalities in health and mortality.
Visitor Spotlight: Gal Shoval
July 23, 2021
Author
Written by Aimee Bronfeld, Center for Health and Wellbeing
Visiting from Israel's Tel Aviv University and Geha Mental Health Center, Gal Shoval, M.D. is engaged in collaborative research at Princeton. In this Spotlight, Dr. Shoval discusses the project behind his visit, his specialization in adolescent and child psychiatry, and his ambitions for promoting stronger children, families and communities.
Faculty Spotlight: Alyssa Sharkey
June 21, 2021
Author
Written by Aimee Bronfeld, Center for Health and Wellbeing
A better life for all. In a recent interview, CHW affiliate Alyssa Sharkey explains how that slogan, featured on a South African election poster for Nelson Mandela, inspired her career and fierce desire to improve the lives of disadvantaged women and children across the globe.
Visitor Spotlight: Adrienne Lucas
May 3, 2021
Author
Written by Aimee Bronfeld, Center for Health and Wellbeing
Adrienne Lucas, a development economist and visiting research scholar at CHW, has devoted much of her career to studying the connection between global health and wealth. In a recent interview, Lucas discusses her background and recent work exploring education and disease as critical drivers of prosperity, productivity and quality of life.
Visitor Spotlight: Seth Richards-Shubik
Feb. 25, 2021
Author
Written by Aimee Bronfeld, Center for Health and Wellbeing
In a recent interview, Professor Richards-Shubik, an economist and visiting research scholar at the Center for Health and Wellbeing, reflects upon his diverse background and work investigating medical provider behavior.
Faculty Spotlight: Andrea L. Graham
Dec. 21, 2020
Author
Written by Aimee Bronfeld, Center for Health and Wellbeing
In this Spotlight, Professor Graham shares her passion for disease ecology and evolutionary immunology. She discusses her notable contributions to the field, highlighting her pioneering research on host-parasite interactions.
Postdoc Spotlight: Esmée Zwiers
Nov. 4, 2020
Author
Written by Aimee Bronfeld
Nature or nurture? Esmée Zwiers is fascinated by this age-old debate about the forces that drive human behavior. An economist with broad interests in labor and health economics, her postdoctoral research studies the meaningful, often measurable ways in which biological and environmental factors shape people’s lives.
Faculty Spotlight: C. Jessica Metcalf
Sept. 23, 2020
Author
Written by Aimee Bronfeld
In a recent interview, CHW affiliate Jessica Metcalf chronicles her passage from the shores of Madagascar to the front lines of global health. A demographer with broad interests in evolutionary ecology, infectious disease dynamics, and public policy, her research has surged into the limelight as the scientific community confronts Covid-19.
Postdoc Spotlight: Bahadir Dursun
July 16, 2020
Author
Written by Aimee Bronfeld
Education matters. Those two words, by his own account, encapsulate a lifetime of experience for Bahadir Dursun, Ph.D., postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Health and Wellbeing. In this Spotlight, Bahadir discusses his background and work on human capital formation, including its intergenerational effects on physical and psychological wellbeing.
Visiting Fellow Spotlight: Veronica Grembi
June 3, 2020
Author
Written by Aimee Bronfeld
In this Spotlight, Visiting Fellow Veronica Grembi, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Milan, offers a candid glimpse into her background and research investigating issues at the intersection of law and economics, from medical malpractice to fiscal rules.
Postdoc Spotlight: Adriana Corredor-Waldron
April 23, 2020
Author
Written by Aimee Bronfeld

One might say that Adriana Corredor-Waldron, postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Health and Wellbeing (CHW), has a knack for numbers. She holds a Ph.D. in economics and launched her career as an analyst for the Central Bank of Colombia, assessing futures, currency options and foreign exchange risk to evaluate the financial stability of…

GHP Postdoc Spotlight: Heidi Morefield
Jan. 28, 2020
Author
Written by Aimee Bronfeld

Heidi Morefield, Ph.D., postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Health and Wellbeing (CHW), has a unique perspective on public health. After growing up in Canada with the security of universal health care, Heidi experienced a far more fragmented health insurance system in the United States, where coverage has not kept pace with escalating…

Visiting Fellow Spotlight: Carla Guerriero
Feb. 28, 2019
Author
Written by Erin Wispelwey
Welcome, Carla Guerriero! Carla, who is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics and Statistics at the University of Naples Federico II and an Honorary Research Fellow in Health Economics at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, is visiting Princeton’s Center for Health and Wellbeing this semester. I recently sat down with Carla to learn more about how she incorporates children’s perspectives in her research on family decision making about health and wellbeing.
Visiting Research Scholar Spotlight: Jennifer S. Hirsch
Dec. 13, 2018
Author
Written by Erin Wispelwey
We recently had the opportunity to sit down with Professor Hirsch to learn how she interrogates the upstream and contextual level factors that affect health and wellbeing behaviors and outcomes in her academic work as well as how she is working toward advancing justice and amplifying her impact through community organizing.
GHP Postdoc Spotlight: Sebastian Ramirez
Nov. 29, 2018
Author
Written by Erin Wispelwey
Welcome, Sebastián Ramírez! Sebastián joins the Global Health Program as a postdoctoral research associate. In this spotlight, we talked with Sebastián about his background in anthropology, how he thinks about identity and place, and his research with internally displaced people in Colombia. Below is our conversation, edited for space.
Postdoc Spotlight: Jerry Nutor
Nov. 1, 2018
Author
Written by Erin Wispelwey
In this spotlight, we talked with Jerry about what perspective and expertise nurses bring to global health challenges, the importance of cultural humility in global health work, and why he started the African Interdisciplinary Health Conference.
Raphael Frankfurter ‘13: From freshman seminar to Sierra Leone and medical school, how anthropology influences one alum’s global health work.
May 10, 2018
Author
Written by Erin Wispelwey

In this spotlight, we talk to Raphael Frankfurter about how to incorporate a critical anthropological perspective into global health practice and his experience working in Sierra Leone before, during, and after the Ebola outbreak.

 

Erin:…

The excitement to tackle the biggest challenges: Tejas Sathe ‘13
April 24, 2018
Author
Written by Erin Wispelwey
In this Spotlight, we talk to Tejas Sathe ‘13 about his favorite classes at Princeton, how the GHP got him excited to tackle big health challenges and his interests in the interplay between viruses and cancer.
Supplying the Evidence to Drive Policy: Rebecca Thorsness ‘13
April 3, 2018
Author
Written by Erin Wispelwey
In this spotlight, we talk with Rebecca Thorsness ‘13 about how she explored domestic health policy through Princeton’s Global Health Program (GHP) and has dedicated her career to improving healthcare access in the US through Medicaid policy and access.
How learning about ambiguity brought more clarity to public health for Elizabeth Sajewski ‘13
March 6, 2018
Author
Written by Erin Wispelwey

In this Spotlight, we talked with Elizabeth Sajewski about her experience working with epidemiologists in Kathmandu as an undergraduate, how storytelling and mathematical modeling go hand-in-hand in the creation of health risk assessments, and why you should explore broadly in public health.


Erin: As an undergrad, what did…

Thinking about health across “scales”: Amy Sweeny ‘12
Feb. 13, 2018
Author
Written by Erin Wispelwey

Amy Sweeny studies helminth infection in mice as a PhD student in Evolutionary Biology. Amy Sweeny wrote her Princeton thesis on helminth infection in mice as an Ecology and Evolutionary Biology major. However, Amy’s evolution from undergraduate worm researcher to PhD worm researcher was not a straight path, she tried different job…

Ahead of her time: Regan Marsh '99
Jan. 2, 2018
Author
Written by Erin Wispelwey
In this spotlight article, we read about Regan's journey through (a pre-GHP) Princeton, medicine, and this moment in her career.
From policy to entrepreneurship: Josh Oppenheimer ‘11 shares his different experiences advancing healthcare.
Dec. 7, 2017
Author
Written by Erin Wispelwey
In this spotlight, we talked to Josh Oppenheimer ‘11 about his work studying and advocating for universal health care in Mexico, the U.S., Peru, and the U.K.; how his startup uses Machine Learning to predict cardiac events; and how his time as the Managing Editor of the Daily Princetonian made him a better clinician.
Seeing people’s humanity past the numbers; Yolisa Nalule ‘10
Nov. 3, 2017
Author
Written by Erin Wispelwey
In this spotlight we talk to Yolisa Nalule ‘10 about when she first learned the term “public health,” how a Health Grand Challenges project added a new perspective to how she saw her home country of Uganda, and how she has been combatting the spread of antibiotic resistance, and fighting infectious disease. Her advice to current students is to travel to find out what you like and what you don’t like to doing in global health—and invest in a few statistics or epidemiology skills.
On the ground: Why global health matters to Sojung Yi ‘12
Oct. 19, 2017
Author
Written by Erin Wispelwey
In this spotlight, we talk with Sojung Yi about her experiences abroad, what has inspired her outlook, how she finds motivation in medical school, and why global health begins with local health.
Finding herself in global health: Heidi Robbins '13
Oct. 5, 2017
Author
Written by Erin Wispelwey
In this spotlight article, Heidi Robbins talks about how she found herself in global health.
Finding support through the Global Health Program: Nazli Senyuva ‘12
Oct. 5, 2017
Author
Written by Erin Wispelwey

Over the past five years, Career Services at Princeton has been trying to reframe how undergraduates approach their career paths to a hypothesis-driven approach: Explore-Try-Reflect-Change, Explore-Try-Reflect-Change…

Annette Dekker '12
May 24, 2017
Author
Written by Alex Wheatley '16
In this spotlight, Annette Dekker talks about how GHP gave her the foundation for a career in clinical medicine and the impetus to make a significant impact in the global health arena.
Listen, Learn, Teach: Rachel Rizal '09
May 11, 2017
Author
Written by Alex Wheatley '16

Fulbright Scholar, published author, Harvard resident, Stanford grad, Princeton grad: these are the terms used to describe Rachel Elise Rizal. A 2009 graduate of the Woodrow Wilson School, Rachel has followed her passion for healthcare delivery and health education to incredible places.

Rachel’s global health story truly begins with…

Kanwal Matharu ’13
May 1, 2017
Author
Written by Alex Wheatley '16
In this Spotlight, we talked with Kanwal Matharu about GHP and neuroscience, his love for medicine, and the value of giving back.
Evolving Perspectives: Evelyn Siu '15
April 10, 2017
Author
Written by Alex Wheatley '16
In this spotlight, Evelyn Siu '15 reflects on her time in GHP.
A Mind for Medicine: Ameer Elbuluk '13
March 22, 2017
Author
Written by Alex Wheatley '16
In this spotlight, Ameer Elbuluk ’13 recounts how his GHP experiences inside and outside of the classroom shaped his global health path.
Engineering domestic health: Jack Ching '13
March 2, 2017
Author
Written by Alex Wheatley '16
In this spotlight, Jack Ching reflects on his experience with the Global Health Program.
An Unexpected Entrepreneur: Christine Blauvelt '12
Feb. 7, 2017
Author
Written by Alex Wheatley '16
In this spotlight, Christine Blauvelt reflects on defining moments in her Global Health history.
Biology is Like a Puzzle: BJ Sullivan '11
Jan. 23, 2017
Author
Written by Alex Wheatley '16
In this spotlight, BJ Sullivan explains how GHP helped him develop a holistic perspective.
A Strong Moral Compass: Alex Gertner '10
Jan. 6, 2017
Author
Written by Alex Wheatley '16
“Keep your moral compass, be humble, be creative, and don’t be scared of risks.” These are Alex Gertner’s words of advice for current GHP students. A 2010 graduate in anthropology, Gertner shared his perspective for this Spotlight.
Chewing on Global Health: Elektra Alivisatos '14
Jan. 6, 2017
Author
Written by Alex Wheatley '16
Elektra Alivisatos '14 shares her thoughts on making connections through GHP, working in the life sciences, and balancing life inside and outside the classroom.
Global Health Lessons from Teach for America: Liz Chen '10
Oct. 21, 2016
Author
Written by Alex Wheatley
Liz Chen graduated with the first GHP cohort in 2010. She shares her perspective on GHP, Teach for America, and the idea that global health is local health.
A people perspective: Allison Daminger and the social determinants of health
Aug. 2, 2016
Author
Written by Alex Wheatley
Reflecting on her journey through and after Princeton, Daminger '12 advises global health students to "make a plan, but don't stick to it".
A Passion for Biotech: Alex Rosen '11
July 5, 2016
Author
Written by Alex Wheatley
Rosen ’11 speaks passionately about health services, biotech, and the value of a multidisciplinary education.
Embracing complexity: Charlotte Grinberg '13
June 16, 2016
Author
Written by Alex Wheatley
Princeton's Global Health Program taught Grinberg '13 to see systems and people "in a complicated, nuanced way."