The Global Health Initiative

Spotlight: SPH-GHI Global Health Map

This SPH-GHI Global Health Map features SPH faculty and student projects around the world. We hope this map offers a way to connect and inform our community with what we are doing globally. Projects include research, courses, practice and service, and combinations of these categories. The map is interactive, so clicking on a red cluster will display SPH projects happening there. All projects have links or investigator emails, so you can definitely get more information. If you can contribute to this map, please fill out the New Project Form. We encourage faculty and students to feature their current projects, outside of those exclusively in the United States.

Global Health Initiative Announces 2025 Faculty Travel and PhD Seed Grant Awardees

The Global Health Initiative (GHI) is proud to announce the recipients of its 2025 Faculty Travel and PhD Seed Grant Awards, recognizing exceptional proposals to make lasting contributions to global health research and innovation. These awards provide critical support to faculty and emerging scholars who are building new collaborations, advancing the frontiers of global health through impactful, cross-disciplinary research.

Dr. Heather Amato was awarded the 2025 GHI Faculty Travel Award to support the advancement of molecular pathogen and AMR surveillance and strengthen research partnership between the UMD-SPH and collaborators at Kathmandu University and Dhulikhel Hospital in rural Nepal. The award will fund travel for collaborators from Nepal to visit UMD for wet lab training, partnership building, and travel for UMD-SPH researchers to visit Nepal to support capacity building exercises. Dr. Amato’s initiative aims to foster long-term collaboration, enhance laboratory skills, and improve regional capacity for molecular diagnostics and AMR research.

Claire Barlow, PhD student in Environmental Health Sciences, plans to leverage existing relationships with communities, partner schools, and international collaborators in Varanasi, India to quantify E. coli and assess the amount of fecal pollution that villagers may be exposed to through their drinking water. As groundwater contamination in Varanasi continues to pose a significant public health risk, this work aims to improve water quality monitoring and enhance the effectiveness of water safety interventions. “Clean drinking water is a human right,” said Barlow. “Through research, collaboration, and cross-cultural learning, we can improve global public health outcomes.”

Angshuman Kashyap, PhD student in Behavioral and Community Health, will conduct a mixed-methods study with young men (ages 18–21) in Delhi and Dar es Salaam about how they engage with digital sexual content, and how this shapes their knowledge and attitudes toward Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH). His work aims to center young men back in the SRH conversation, recognizing that young men in India and Tanzania are turning to digital media, including social media and online games, for information on sexual content. Kashyap’s work will lead to the adaptation and validation of an age and culturally appropriate tool to measure digital media exposure among youth in these regions.

GHI congratulates Dr. Heather Amato, Angshuman Kashyap, and Claire Barlow and looks forward to the impactful research they will contribute to the global health community!

We anticipate offering more seed grants in 2025-2026.

Global Health Initiative Student Profiles

Almost every single part of my resume has something that was given to me as an opportunity by Public Health Beyond Borders.

Adriana Koilpillai BS '26 Read Adriana's profile

Student Profile: Lydia Walter

Lydia Walter, BS' 25

Lydia Walter served as Project Leader for PHBB India from 2022 to 2024 and PHBB president from 2024 to 2025. As part of two travel teams to Varanasi, India, Walter helped deliver stress management, team building and first aid workshops based on community needs assessments. Walter and her team were able to present research findings at the American Public Health Association conferences. Walter has since graduated and is now serving in the Peace Corps in Peru.