Connecting Students With Research, Their Community and The World

Bass Connections in Global Health - Peru

Published January 21, 2014, last updated on April 9, 2018 under Education News

In 2013, students experienced global health field research at the grassroots level while learning what it means to work in teams and with the community on a real health issue. This year, dozens more students will have the same opportunity, thanks to Bass Connections in Global Health.

DGHI is now recruiting for seven Bass Connections in Global Health projects (topics and faculty also listed below) that involve seven schools and institutes at Duke, 26 faculty members and seven different countries.  Bass Connections allows students, undergraduate through doctoral, to work alongside one other, as well as faculty, other researchers and community partners, to tackle a global health issue in the field.

The range of topics is also diverse and includes research that explores the link between human health and evolutionary biology. Evolutionary anthropologist Charles Nunn says he and his collaborators are excited about the project and building their student research team.

“Bass Connections is enabling us to assemble a diverse and interdisciplinary group that will provide significant traction on global health challenges, and will spawn exciting new research opportunities,” said Nunn. “We have already identified incredible enthusiasm across the university for studying this topic.”  

Students say the program is rewarding, eye-opening and worthwhile. A group of students will share their Bass Connections experience this Thursday at the Bass Connections Open House as part of an afternoon of activities for the Gross Hall for Interdisciplinary Innovation event. One of these students is Libby MacFarlane, a first-year student in the Duke Master of Science in Global Health who is part of the Bass Connections team studying the mental health of displaced and resettled refugees. She says her participation in Bass Connections has further developed her creative problem-solving and leadership skills.

“Having an opportunity at Duke to collaborate and ideate on complex and relevant problems has been both rewarding and challenging. The interdisciplinary nature of Bass Connections is also preparing me for working on diverse teams in the global health field,” said MacFarlane. “As a global health student conditioned to focus on the big picture, I really enjoy having the opportunity to be so connected with the local community, which in turn, helps inform the big picture.”

In this short video, hear more about the Bass Connections experience from students involved in a North Carolina-based project on intimate partner violence. A Duke Today article also highlighted the Peru team, which studied the impact of gold mining in the Amazon watershed.

 

 

RECRUITING STUDENTS FOR 2014-2015 BASS CONNECTIONS PROJECTS:
Learn more and apply.

- Environmental Epidemiology in Latin America 
Faculty: William Pan (Environment/DGHI), Jennifer Swenson (Enviornment), Helen Hsu-Kim (Engineering), Marco Marani (Engineering)

- Shining Evolutionary Light on Global Health Challenges              
Faculty: Charles Nunn (Evolutionary Anthropology/DGHI), Daniel Schmitt (Evolutionary Anthropology), Allen Rodrigo (National Evolutionary Synthesis Center/Biology)

- Chlorhexadine for Umbilical Cord Care        
Faculty: Jeff Moe (Business/DGHI), Nimmi Ramanujam (Engineering/DGHI)

- Community Care of Frail Elders in Cross-Cultural Settings: A Team-based Approach
Faculty: Bei Wu (Nursing/DGHI), Eleanor McConnell (Nursing), Kristen Corazzini (Nursing), Truls Ostbye (Community and Family Medicine/DGHI), Joanna Maselko (Psychiatry/DGHI), Frank Sloan (Economics/Policy)

- Evaluation of Scaling Innovative Healthcare Delivery in Nairobi, Kenya               
Faculty: Krishna Udayakumar (Medicine/DGHI), Joe Egger (DGHI), David Robinson (Business)

- Integrative Global Health Research on Sickle Cell Disease          
Faculty: Charmaine Royal (African & African American Studies/IGSP), Michael Babyak (Medicine/Psychiatry), Nirmish Shah (Medicine/Hematology), Karrie Stewart (Cultural Anthropology/DGHI)

- Distance-based, Executive- style Degree Completion Program for Ghanaian Nurse Anesthetists
Faculty: Brett Morgan (Nursing), Theo Benson (Computer Science), Adeyemi Olufolabi (Medicine/Anesthesiology), Sumedha Ariely (DGHI)