Hello friends of GHI!
Welcome back to the new academic season! It’s been a whirlwind summer, and we are using our momentum to carry us into additional partnerships and growth this year to provide more multidisciplinary educational and research opportunities.
For those of you who are new to campus and GHI, we introduce ourselves as collaborators and conveners, working with all colleges and units on campus to expand the Wisconsin Idea locally and globally. We partner with academia, industry, governments, communities, and NGOs to facilitate a unique One Health framework; where humans, animals, and the environment are interconnected and require transdisciplinary problem solving.
We invite you to join us! GHI’s educational opportunities begin at the undergraduate level through post-doctoral research. We encourage incoming freshman and undergraduates to look at the Global Health Undergraduate Program through the College of Agricultural & Life Sciences. Here you will find information about the Global Health Major and Global Health Certificate, as well as GHI’s summer internship for undergrads (UW–Madison NetId required) at its One Health Center – Colombia – providing the perfect base to launch your global health-focused career.
As illustrated in GHI’s 2023 – 2024 annual report, we’ve taken proactive steps to establish even more opportunities for lasting impact in local communities across the world at our One Health Centers, created safe and collaborative spaces to shape future global health leaders, and expanded our One Health network with additional global health experts and partners.
Our summer highlights include stories about GHI sponsored post-doctoral and graduate student researchers. These academic pursuits encompass GHI’s five strategic focus areas: 1) Resource Security: Food, Water & Energy; 2) Emerging Infectious Diseases; 3) Social, Cultural & Economic Equity; 4) Human, Animal and Plant Health; and 5) Climate and Land Use Change.
GHI’s post-doctoral researchers are translating evidence into action by investigating sustainable agriculture, agri-food systems, security, food sovereignty, and health within the Indigenous Emberá population; gut microbiota of an Amazonian community in the process of urbanization; and attention and care practices for the management of vector borne disease in the Southern Colombian Amazon.
With matching funds from the Colombian government, GHI is sponsoring three graduate students making powerful, multidisciplinary impacts including developing a second-generation yellow fever vaccine; working with cell therapy to find connections with cancer; and collaborating with the Migration in the Americas project to understand the communication, health, and legal challenges migrants face when looking to reach the United States through the Darién Gap.
Additional collaborative efforts this summer included advancing partnerships in Rwanda, Guadalajara, and South Africa; culminating in a visit by renowned researcher Tulio de Oliveira in July as a featured speaker in the Steenbock Lectures in Biochemistry, which was co-hosted by the Department of Biochemistry and GHI. Plus, GHI is hosting Dr. Saminathan Mani, an Indian Veterinary Research Institute Fellow with the Indian Council of Medical Research, to improve the efficacy of a rabies vaccine being worked on at UW-Madison to help mitigate the spread of the virus in India. Adding to this already impressive list of summer accomplishments was my recent moderating opportunity at Centro Cultural Universitario, Universidad de Guadalajara, establishing a pilot project on urban health, public policy, and One Health; and our participation in the inaugural meeting of the One Health University Network for North America at Colorado State University in mid-August.
We wrapped up the summer with our annual advisory retreat, convening over 50 global health experts from across UW’s disciplines, offering an opportunity to reflect on GHI’s achievements over the past year, discuss key challenges and opportunities, and strategize how best to implement our mission. The retreat included a series of interactive sessions with GHI partners from around the globe and across sectors, networking, and creating new collaborations.
GHI uniquely positions the Wisconsin Idea into global action both locally and internationally, and reinforces our mission of being a global health security convener and innovation catalyst. This fall, I hope to see you at our monthly webinar series, quarterly coffee chats, and welcome an opportunity to discuss collaborative research, grants and outreach with you.
Thanks for being current and future friends and advocates of GHI!
On, Wisconsin!
Jorge Osorio
Director