Each year the UW Department of Global Health is able to provide partial to full funding to recruit top applicants. In addition to financial support, some recipients also receive mentorship and real-world experience through research assistant positions. For the 2022-2023 academic year, 14 outstanding graduate students received funding to support their studies. Learn more about this impressive cohort, including their journeys to arrive at UW and the impact they hope to have on the field of global health.
Read about previous DGH RAs and Fellows here: 2016/17, 2017/18, 2018/19, 2019/20, 2020/21, and 2021/22.
MPH in Global Health
Ayan Ali, Research Assistant, Endowed Fellowship for Global Health Excellence, Equity, and Impact
Ayan Ali is a child of Somali refugees, first generation immigrant, and first-generation college graduate and graduate student. She received her BA in Medical Anthropology and Global Health from the University of Washington. She is pursuing her education and career in hopes of one day being part of the solution and addressing the multiple health disparities and equities that led to her past personal experiences. Read more.
Diana Lalika, Endowed Fellowship for Global Health Excellence, Equity, and Impact
Diana Lalika is an aspiring public health professional with BSc Food Science and Technology from the University of Dar es Salaam, who is passionate about reducing the burden of non-communicable diseases in low-resource areas. Her interest in contributing to the global efforts to reduce the disease burden motivated her to work in research and programs to address diseases. Diana is a first-year MPH Global Health student and a Teaching Assistant in the Nutritional Sciences Program, looking forward to joining the change team to solve global health challenges. Read more.
Maren Luján, Endowed Fellowship for Global Health Excellence, Equity, and Impact
Maren Luján got her undergraduate degree from the University of Texas where she studied psychology and focused on race and gender studies. She then completed a Master’s in International Development Management with a certification in Public Anthropology at American University. Having worked in public health for the past 10 years, she’s interested in how we might better engage the community in the development and implementation of public health interventions. Read more.
Tiara Ranson, Research Assistant, Endowed Fellowship for Global Health Excellence, Equity, and Impact
Tiara received her BS in Global Health and sociology from the University of Miami which propelled her research involvement and furthered her interest in community health, race, and social medicine in the US. Prior to coming to UW, she had an amazing experience at the National Health Institute (NIH) with the National Human Genome Research Institute. Her work in research highlights how social structural problems of racism have led to worse outcomes for disadvantages communities for disadvantaged communities like Black families in Miami, Black community-based organizations, Black women in South Florida, or Black women with sickle cell disease. Read more.
Sandra Urusaro, Endowed Fellowship for Global Health Excellence, Equity, and Impact
Sandra Urusaro is a public health practitioner and a nurse by training from the University of Pennsylvania. After college, she worked with Partners In Health Rwanda in a couple of roles within the clinical department. Her work with Partners In Health solidified her desire to grow as a public health practitioner and researcher. Her research interests are improving the quality of care, streamlining, care systems, and optimizing available resources in health to create resilient health systems that address barriers to dignified and adequate care in marginalized communities. Read more.
PhD - Implementation Science
Amanda Brumwell, Provost Award
Amanda earned her B.S. Biology and A.B. in Global Health from Duke University and holds a M.A.S. in Population Health Management from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Prior to starting her PhD at the University of Washington, she served as the Managing Director of Advance Access & Delivery, collaborating programs providing care for tuberculosis, chronic disease including diabetes and hypertension, and harm reduction in South Africa, India, Peru, and on the US-Mexico border. Amanda’s research has focused primarily on case-finding and care delivery for TB and chronic disease in low- and middle-income settings. Read more.
Ana Krause, Provost Award
Ana completed her MSc in International Public Health at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) and has a Bachelor of Nursing Science from Queen’s University in Canada. Her background is in nursing working in emergency and humanitarian/lower-resource settings in Canada, Bangladesh, Sierra Leone, and Tanzania. Her research interests include non-communicable diseases, health systems strengthening, improving patient outcomes, and implementation science. Read more.
Irene Mukui, Provost Award, Top Scholar Award
Irene holds Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery degrees from the University of Nairobi in Kenya and an MPH (Epidemiology-Global Health) from the University of Washington. She is also an alumnus 2018 NPGH Fogarty fellowship. Prior to starting her PHD she worked as the Head of Disease, HIV at Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi), a not-for-profit research & development international organization. She really wants to learn how to apply implementation science methods in getting interventions to work efficiently and in a timely manner and effectively in many health areas. Read more.
PhD - Pathobiology
Erin Barnett, 1st year, Research Assistant, Kenny Endowed Fellowship Recipient, UW Fellow for Academic Excellence, and UW Graduate School Top Scholar
Erin received a BA in Public Health on a pre-medical science track from the University of Texas. She then got her Masters in Microbiology and Immunology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and continued to work at JHBSPH as a research technician for Dr. Doug Norris to understand the transmission interface of malaria vectors. Read more.
Becca Blyn, 1st year, Research Assistant and Achievement Rewards for College Scientists (ARCS) Foundation Fellowship
Becca received her B.S. in Biology from Harvey Mudd College, a small STEM-focused liberal arts school in southern California. She also did a minor in music focused on euphonium performance in solo and concert band settings. Her thesis work at HMC on Trypanosoma brucei, the causative agent of African sleeping sickness, first led her to become interested in host-pathogen research. Given her additional passions for social justice and advocacy, she found that she was really excited by the idea of pursuing research related to neglected tropical diseases and pathogens affecting developing countries. Read more.
Nhi Ho, 1st year, Research Assistant and UW Fellow for Academic Excellence
Nhi earned her BA in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, OR. Prior to joining the Pathobiology PhD program, she worked as a research technician in a malaria drug discovery lab at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, TX. Her research interest is in pathogenesis and maternal-fetal health. Read more.
Molly Kanagy, 1st year, Research Assistant and UW Fellow for Academic Excellence
Molly graduated from Whitman in 2020 with her bachelor’s in Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Molecular Biology, then went to Seattle where she worked in Dr. Justin Taylor’s laboratory at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center. In Dr. Taylor’s lab, her focus was on using CRISPR/Cas9 to genetically modify B cells to express engineered monoclonal antibodies and to help develop strategies for therapeutic uses of engineered B cells. Read more.
Kristine Tandoc, 1st year, Research Assistant and UW Fellow for Academic Excellence
Kristine completed her B.S. in Biochemistry and Minor in Global Health here at the University of Washington. As an undergrad, she completed research with Dr. Rafael Hernandez studying antibiotic combinations to better treat Mycobacterium abscessus. It was through her coursework and research experience that she decided to pursue a PhD. She’s excited to be back at UW pursuing a PhD in Pathobiology and following her passion for research. Read more.
Aldo Trejos, 1st year, Research Assistant and UW Fellow for Academic Excellence
Aldo completed his bachelor's degree in biochemistry from California State University, Los Angeles. As an undergraduate researcher, he studied the effects of antimicrobial peptides on outer membrane vesicle formation in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. His research interest is how bacterial pathogens research can help solve global health issues. Read more.