Student Fellows Program Fall 2023 Research Projects
Below is a list of the proposed research projects for GHI Fall 2023 Student Fellows. Each project indicates whether it requires remote work, in-person work, or a hybrid of remote and in-person work. Any in-person work is subject to the university's operating guidelines. More information about the program and how to apply is available on the GHI Student Fellows Program website.
For this section, please take a closer look at who can apply for each project.
Opportunities for Undergraduate, Graduate, Law, and Medical Students
Bioscience and Technology Influence
Faculty Mentor: James Giordano, Professor, Department of Neurology; Chief, Neuroethics Program; Co-Director, Program in Brain Science and Global Health Law and Policy
Project Description: The fellow will contribute to a project that explores iterative use of bioscience and technology to influence global economic markets and leverage “biopower” hegemonies.
Who Can Apply: Undergraduate Junior/Senior and Graduate Students, Law Students, Medical Students
Skills Preferred: Excellent writing skills
Work Modality: Remote work
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Breast Cancer Patients in the United States and Taiwan
Faculty Mentor: Judy Wang, Professor, Department of Oncology
Project Description: We are conducting an international study examining the relationships among nutrition, symptom severity, and functioning among newly diagnosed breast cancer patients in the United States and Taiwan. The fellow will be involved in various research tasks including 1) receiving training for human subjects research, 2) enrolling breast cancer patients from Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center by an on-site visit or telephone, 3) administering the survey and dietary assessments, 4) entering and checking survey and clinical data, 5) participating in manuscript writing and grant applications if interested, and 6) assisting any research-related logistics such as literature review, IRB applications, and other administrative documents. Patients may prefer to be telephone interviewed in the evenings or on the weekends, so a flexible work schedule may be needed.
Who Can Apply: Undergraduate and Graduate Students, Medical Students
Skills Preferred: Fluent in speaking and writing English; skills in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint; basic statistical skills in SAS or other statistical software are a plus
Work Modality: Remote and in-person work
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Communications for the Initiative for Global Mental Health and Well-being
Faculty Mentor: Shabab Wahid, Assistant Professor, Department of Global Health
Project Description: The School of Health, in partnership with multiple Georgetown University stakeholders, will be launching an interdisciplinary Initiative for Global Mental Health and Well-being in fall 2023. We are seeking a student fellow to assist the advisory board in implementing key activities of the initiative, including: (1) a stakeholder survey and analysis of Georgetown faculty, students, and staff to identify priority areas for scholarship in global mental health and well-being; (2) “Global Mental Health Dialogues @ Georgetown” events, which will host international and national leaders at Georgetown University, and involve assisting in logistics, event management, and writing up summary articles for dissemination on relevant Georgetown websites; (3) coding of qualitative transcripts of key informant interviews conducted in Kenya examining ecological grief of climate change-affected communities. Fellow will be mentored in qualitative research as needed.
Who Can Apply: Undergraduate Junior/Senior and Graduate Students
Skills Preferred: Event management; qualitative research; writing skills—scientific, blogs, articles
Work Modality: Remote and in-person work
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COVID-19 and Seroprevalence
Faculty Mentors: John Kraemer, Associate Professor, Chair, Department of Health Management and Policy, and Mark Meyer, Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics and Statistics
Project Description: The best way to understand how COVID-19 spread through populations is the use of population-representative seroprevalence surveys that measure whether people have antibodies against SARS-CoV-2. Our team has previously developed methods to adjust seroprevalence estimates for the imperfect ability of testing to detect antibodies. We are now developing methods to account for declining antibody levels over time, which leads to people no longer being positive in antibody surveys. The student fellow will help construct datasets that account for seroprevalence within a jurisdiction as well as the declining sensitivity of specific tests over time. Ultimately, this work will enable us to better estimate the cumulative number of people with COVID-19 over time and across jurisdictions, and it will enable us to better estimate location-specific case-fatality rates. This is a great project for students interested in graduate school in public health, epidemiology, or biostatistics. We are part of a team collaborating with folks at Case Western Reserve University and University of Maryland Baltimore County, so the fellow will get exposure to how public health research teams work.
Who Can Apply: Undergraduate Students
Skills Preferred: The ideal student would be majoring or minoring in math, statistics, or computer science; an introductory course in epidemiology is preferable
Work Modality: Remote and in-person work
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Drug Resistance
Faculty Mentor: Paul Roepe, Professor, Department of Chemistry
Project Description: This project includes biochemical and biophysical studies of antimalarial drug resistance proteins.
Who Can Apply: Undergraduate Junior/Senior and Graduate Students, Medical Students
Skills Preferred: Good science and math knowledge; Prior experience in routine recombinant DNA methods or heterologous expression of proteins is a plus
Work Modality: In-person work
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Education and Sustainability in Liberia
Faculty Mentor: Rosemary Sokas, Professor, Department of Human Science
Project Description: Holy Family Parish in Caldwell, Liberia, is the only Jesuit parish in the country and runs a primary care health center that continued to provide midwifery services throughout the 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic. Following a hands-on workshop in 2019, we have maintained contact with the health center and continue to develop outreach projects to promote continuing education and sustainability.
Who Can Apply: Undergraduate and Graduate Students, Law Students, and Medical Students
Skills Preferred: This is an outreach project that requires both writing and oral presentation skills.
Work Modality: Remote and in-person work
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Effects of Climate Change in Ghana
Faculty Mentor: Jessica Kritz, Assistant Professor, Department of Global Health
Project Description: Community Engagement Core Goal: In Accra, Ghana, establish, build upon, and maintain authentic partnerships to engage communities most likely to be impacted by climate change in all phases of the research process of the broader research project. The broader research project objective: Create infrastructure and enable research projects that address the effects of climate change—including, but not limited to heat stress, drought, flooding, ocean acidification and consequent food insecurity, climate migration and increased vector ranges, and ambient pollution environmental exposures—on workers in Ghana. In particular, the projects will address the disproportionate burden of climate change on workers in the informal sector.
Who Can Apply: Undergraduate Junior/Senior and Graduate Students
Skills Preferred: Excellent research and writing; qualitative analysis; ability to plan independently
Work Modality: Remote and in-person work
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Event Management for the Initiative for Global Mental Health and Well-being
Faculty Mentor: Shabab Wahid, Assistant Professor, Department of Global Health
Project Description: The School of Health, in partnership with multiple Georgetown University stakeholders, will be launching an interdisciplinary Initiative for Global Mental Health and Well-being in fall 2023. We are seeking a student fellow to assist the advisory board in implementing key activities of the initiative, including: (1) planning, management, and implementation of an awareness campaign on global mental health and well-being (GMH & WB) on campus, including an arts project exploring themes of well-being and ill-being, in collaboration with various centers, departments, and services at Georgetown University—this includes writing up media pieces to be hosted on relevant Georgetown University web spaces; (2) facilitation of a flagship event hosting global leaders in GMH&WB at Georgetown University following a key conference by the National Institute of Mental Health—the fellow will assist in logistics, event management, and production of dissemination products on Georgetown web spaces, and beyond; (3) preparation of a research proposal on resilience and well-being in communities displaced by flooding to understand coping and mental health outcomes in disaster zones in South Asia.
Who Can Apply: Undergraduate Junior/Senior and Graduate Students
Skills Preferred: Strong scientific writing skills; qualitative research; event management
Work Modality: Remote and in-person work
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Health Misinformation and Social Media
Faculty Mentor: Leticia Bode, Associate Professor, Communication, Culture, and Technology Program
Project Description: The fellow will work on a book project that focuses on correction of health misinformation on social media. Specifically, we have interview data from three types of professionals—fact-checking journalists, public health organization communicators, and people who have worked on misinformation for social media platforms. Some of those interviews are quoted in the book manuscript. This person would be responsible for identifying each quote in the manuscript and verifying it against the original recorded interview to ensure all quotes are accurate.
Who Can Apply: Undergraduate and Graduate Students, Law Students, Medical Students
Skills Preferred: Attention to detail; ability to keep clear records
Work Modality: Remote work
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How to End a Pandemic Project
Faculty Mentor: Sharon Abramowitz, Associate Research Professor, Department of Microbiology and Immunology
Project Description: Georgetown University’s Center for Global Health Science and Security convenes the How to End a Pandemic project—a novel interdisciplinary initiative to gather and make available to the public the experiences of epidemic experts and humanitarian response workers. The goal of the project is to learn from people's experiences how to make epidemic, disaster, and humanitarian response faster, safer, and more humane. Undergraduate researchers on this project will work on conducting interviews and curating data for our oral history archive and podcast. Graduate and Law students will work with existing archives to find policy insights and develop new proposals for archive initiatives. Medical students will focus on the clinical, public health, and epidemiological lessons to be learned from pandemic response, with a specific focus on anti-racism, diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Who Can Apply: Undergraduate Junior/Senior and Graduate Students, Medical Students, Law Students
Skills Preferred: All relevant training will be provided
Work Modality: Remote and in-person work
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Impact Measurement and Management and Health
Faculty Mentor: Jun Han, Adjunct Professor, McCourt School of Public Policy
Project Description: This project will explore the intersection between impact measurement and management (IMM) and health. The fellow will provide research assistance on IMM and its practice in health-related initiatives/organizations/investments. We will focus on measuring and evaluating the effectiveness of various organizations—such as nonprofits, social enterprises, and impact investors—operating in the health sector. The assignments include literature review, literature summaries, data analysis, portfolio review, and assessing the performance/impact of different entities and their contributions to the health sector, as well as building an IMM index in the health sector. Additionally, the fellow will actively participate in preparing reports and papers and in communicating the findings and recommendations. By working together on this project, the student will gain a deeper understanding of impact measurement and evaluation standards and practice, while also contributing to the advancement of knowledge in the field of both IMM and health.
Who Can Apply: Undergraduate Junior/Senior and Graduate Students, Law Students, Medical Students
Skills Preferred: Literature summary; data analysis; index building; report writing
Work Modality: Remote work
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Pediatric Patients and Their Families in Latin America
Faculty Mentor: Mariastella Serrano, Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics
Project Description: Working with the PanAmerican Crohn's and Colitis Organization (PANCCO) in Latin America, and the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation and Nutrition for IBD Foundation in the United States, we seek to enhance networking and educational opportunities for professionals that care for patients with inflammatory bowel disease in order to improve the care and outcomes of these patients. Our pediatric section is focused on this mission for all pediatric patients in Latin America and their families. We facilitate webinars, online resources for patients/families and professionals, and in-person medical meetings. Projects include planning the 5th PANCCO international IBD congress that will be held in Argentina in April 2024, as well as developing educational activities, webinars, written materials, applications, and technology. Quality improvement projects that optimize these interventions and serve as ground to improve and develop these are part of our goal. Furthermore, research and scholarly activities that evaluate differences and comparisons in the care pediatric patients with these diseases receive worldwide are an important mainstay of PANCCO's mission.
Who Can Apply: Undergraduate and Graduate Students, Medical Students
Skills Preferred: Interest in professional education and networking; fluency in Spanish or Portuguese would be great but not absolutely necessary
Work Modality: Remote and in-person work
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People Living with HIV in Eswatini
Faculty Mentor: Samson Haumba, Assistant Professor, Center for Global Health Practice and Impact
Project Description: Long term ART and HIV disease is associated dyslipidaemia, and non-communicable disease complications. Review of programmatic data for people living with HIV (PLHIV) in Eswatini suggests that Dolutegravir based regimes increase the risk of hyperglycaemia, overweight and metabolic syndrome. We would like to conduct a detailed analysis of existing data to determine the prevalence and associated factors for Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus, and dyslipidemia, characterize the quality of the available data for programmatic interventions, and to use the baseline assessment to design a longitudinal study to investigate incidence of hyperglycaemia, overweight and metabolic syndrome among PLHIV attending Georgetown supported health facilities in Eswatini and impact of lifestyle interventions. This work will be integrated in other ongoing projects on integrated health services delivery and health systems strengthening.
Who Can Apply: Undergraduate Junior/Senior and Graduate Students, Medical Students
Skills Preferred: Research; analytical skills; interest in non-communicable diseases
Work Modality: Remote work
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Religion, Law, and Politics
Faculty Mentor: Andrés Constantin, Assistant Director of Health Law Programs, O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law and Adjunct Professor of Law, Georgetown Law
Project Description: Professor Constantin is currently working on his book Religious Lawfare: Conscience-Based Claims in Liberal Democracies (forthcoming Brill 2024). The book delves into the critical intersection of religion, law, and politics. In recent years, there has been a growing concern about how religious groups and individuals seek to influence public policy and law, utilizing legal and political strategies. Through comparative research and analysis, the book explores the impact of conscience-based claims on shaping public policy and law, as well as the consequences of these efforts for democracy and human rights. The book aims to provide a compelling normative account of how liberal democracies can effectively address and navigate the complexities surrounding conscience-based claims. In doing so, it opens new avenues for discussions on the intricate relationship between law, religion, and politics, connecting these debates with globalization, multiculturalism, and secularization processes. The fellow would provide research and editing support and may have an opportunity to directly contribute to drafting material for the book. The manuscript is mostly drafted; the fellow will help with improving it. This will sometimes be very big picture work—reading a chapter and pointing out things that are unclear, confusing, or missing—or sometimes very specific, like finding a particular citation or an example of a phenomenon.
Who Can Apply: Undergraduate Junior/Senior and Graduate Students, Law Students
Skills Preferred: Strong research and writing skills will be important, along with an interest in human rights and the intersection between religion, law, and politics
Work Modality: Remote work
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Views of Mental Illness Worldwide
Faculty Mentor: Wilfried Ver Eecke, Professor, Department of Philosophy
Project Description: Treating mental illness is a problem. Some developing countries have a better method than in the United States. Finland has a very successful approach. The different approaches are based on the philosophical difference in understanding the cause of mental illness. The fellow will contribute to the study, worldwide, of different philosophical views of mental illness and the different methods of trying to help the mentally ill patients.
Who Can Apply: Undergraduate and Graduate Students, Law Students, Medical Students
Skills Preferred: Knowledge of different languages to read the local reports and studies
Work Modality: Remote and in-person work
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Opportunities for Only Graduate and/or Medical and/or Law Students
Antifungal Therapy
Faculty Mentor: Dongmei Li, Assistant Professor, Department of Microbiology and Immunology
Project Description: The fellow will have the unique opportunity to work at the forefront of fungal research and make a direct contribution to the discovery of potential solutions to the imminent threats such pathogens pose to public health and agricultural productivity. Join us in this crucial mission to develop innovative strategies to combat drug-resistant fungi and make a lasting impact on global health and agriculture. Your passion, knowledge, and dedication will play a pivotal role in shaping the future of antifungal therapy.
Who Can Apply: Graduate Students
Skills Preferred: Understanding of MIC assays
Work Modality: In-person work
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Global Health Law
Faculty Mentor: Lawrence Gostin, Professor, O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, Georgetown Law
Project Description: The fellow would contribute to one or both of the following projects depending on Professor Gostin's needs at the time and the fellow's interests.
1) Professor Gostin is developing a second edition of Global Health Law, a book first published in 2014 that defined the field of global health law and has served as the leading reference on the subject. Work is now well underway in preparing the second edition, which is a major revision, with numerous new chapters and updates to chapters in the first edition to bring the book up to date. Professor Gostin is collaborating with two other authors on this edition. The fellow would provide research support and may have an opportunity to directly contribute to drafting material for the book.
2) Professor Gostin is leading an O'Neill Institute team on a project, which lasts at least through 2023, in assisting WHO in creating accountability for the global health and care worker compact (https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/carecompact), which lays out state commitments and measures needed to safeguard the rights of health and care workers. States adopted the compact at the May 2022 World Health Assembly. The project involves collecting national laws and policies, as well as international agreements and tools, pertaining to the compact; assessing national laws and policies against ten indicators; and developing a national self-assessment tool. There may be research and other work related to one or several of these components that the fellow could support.
Who Can Apply: Law Students
Skills Preferred: Strong research and writing skills will be important, along with an interest in global health issues and the potential of law to advance global health equity and justice
Work Modality: Remote work
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Radiation Exposures and Microbiomics
Faculty Mentor: Tomoko Y. Steen, Professor, Department of Microbiology and Immunology
Project Description: The project is to learn microbiome dynamics in fecal samples from various areas worldwide where nuclear exposures happened among non-human species, including Chernobyl, Fukushima, Marshall Islands, and the International Space Station. Models do not contain any nuclear materials. The fellow will learn sample management and analysis. The project aims to detect and mitigate radiation exposures through the microbiomics. The fellow will be a co-author for all the papers that we will produce.
Who Can Apply: Graduate Students, Medical Students
Skills Preferred: Programming background in "R" and basic laboratory techniques (DNA extraction, polymerase chain reaction)
Work Modality: Remote and in-person work
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Safe Use of Oxygen in Newborns
Faculty Mentor: Indira Narayanan, Adjunct Professor, Department of Pediatrics/Neonatology
Project Description: Working with a team in Ghana, the Ghana Health Service, local stakeholders, and a donor agency in the United States, Rotary International, this project promotes the safe use of oxygen in newborns in a region in Ghana. This is essential to prevent severe complications in babies due to both inadequate and excessive oxygen. Besides providing practical experience in planning and running an international project, the fellow will gain practical knowledge and experience with all its challenges, how to remedy them, and importantly what aspects need to be looked into when working on an international project. In addition, the fellow will learn how to ascertain that donations provided to a low resource center are chosen wisely and what steps should be taken to promote proper usage and maintenance. All this is to ensure that money and time spent are both appropriate.
Who Can Apply: Graduate Students, Medical Students
Skills Preferred: Interest in review of literature; expertise in developing PowerPoints for presentations; use of Google Drive for maintenance of data/documents; statistical support where required (not mandatory); provision of logistical help for Zoom meetings; maintaining minutes of the meetings in implementing the program; helping write reports
Work Modality: Remote work