If transformation does not reach villages as well as cities, ensuring equal opportunities for all, any changes being ushered in risk fading back into familiar patterns of the old order.

Anne E. Goldfeld ’76, of Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital, will receive the 2025 NFID Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Humanitarian Award in recognition of her groundbreaking contributions as a physician-scientist and humanitarian who has focused on changing the course of 2 of the deadliest epidemics of our time: tuberculosis (TB) and HIV/AIDS. A visionary leader at the intersection of science and service, her work has provided a new understanding behind the immune response to TB/HIV co-infection. Beyond the lab, Goldfeld co-founded transformative treatment and research programs in Cambodia and Ethiopia for TB, drug-resistant TB, and HIV—bringing care to some of the world’s most underserved populations. Earlier in her career, she led humanitarian responses in conflict zones and was an advocate and one of the first voices calling for a global ban of landmines. Her leadership helped change global guidelines for HIV/TB treatment, now estimated to save more than 150,000 lives annually. “Anne Goldfeld is a brilliant and creative physician-scientist, visionary, and a true humanitarian,” said Gail H. Cassell, PhD, senior lecturer, Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. “I have never met anyone in global public health who has made a more profound impact.”

At the Humanitarian Futures Forum 2025 in Singapore, Dr. Adam Levine, Associate Dean of Global Health Equity at Brown University, spoke on strengthening civil–military partnerships in disaster response.

Alethea Desrosiers, PhD is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Brown University and a dedicated implementation scientist committed to promoting global mental health equity. As a faculty member in the Brown Research on Implementation and Dissemination to Guide Evidence Use (BRIDGE), she works to connect youth and families to essential mental health services.

On view at the Warren Alpert Medical School, photographs taken by medical student Benjamin Katz in a rural Rwandan community raise awareness of the health risks posed by lack of access to clean water.

Check out Ben's project, “Intertwined Voices of Refugee Families: A Visual & Narrative Exploration of Resettlement” on display at List Art Center, Room 225, Friday, October 10th, 2025 at 6:30 PM.

The Center for Global Health Equity is proud to share our first Annual Report, highlighting a year of progress in global health research and education.

Since 2009, residents from Brown-affiliated hospitals have come together through the BRIGHT Pathway—a training program designed to foster and develop interest in global health. Over time, the pathway has expanded to include fellows. With the introduction of this cohort, the BRIGHT Pathway consists of 25 trainees across 11 unique specialties.

Dr. Edsel Salvana's article, "Facing the HIV crisis in the Philippines," offers a powerful reflection on his career and his journey in combating the growing HIV crisis in the Philippines. We extend our sincere thanks to him for sharing his invaluable insights and experiences as a guest lecturer in our series.

Amid cresting heat waves around the globe, Dr. Katelyn Moretti, CGHE global health affiliated faculty, relays the risks of high temperatures and how to keep cool and prevent dehydration.

Center for Global Health Equity Awarded Fogarty International Center Grant to Build HIV/TB and Mental Health Research Capacity in Ukraine

Join us for an informal interest meeting hosted by Brown Residency International and Global Health Training Pathway (BRIGHT) co-leaders to learn more about the BRIGHT pathway prior to the application deadline on August 18th. Food will be provided.

The Center for Global Health Equity (GHE) is now accepting applications for the Brown Residency International and Global Health Training Pathway (BRIGHT) now through August 18, 2025.

The BRIGHT Pathway is a 2-year longitudinal program designed to create and support a multidisciplinary community of residents who are interested in making global health part of their career. BRIGHT Pathway consists of quarterly meetings with guest speakers, along with a self-directed curriculum of core global health topics.

Residents are expected to complete and present a scholarly global health project by the end of the 2 years. We recommend participants join during the last two years of their residency program. Participants are also required to attend 3 BRIGHT/CGHE events per year. No prior global health experience is necessary to apply.

Dr. Spencer is an emergency medicine physician and an associate professor at Brown and serves on the advisory board for Doctors Without Borders USA.

With support from The Luke Charitable Foundation, Brown’s international medical exchange programs with Taiwan and China continue to grow—offering impactful experiences for students while building global connections in healthcare education.

On April 28, 2025, the Department of Neurosurgery, Brown Health, hosted a first-of-its-kind forum, inviting prominent neurosurgeons from Taiwan to visit Brown Health. The meeting laid the foundations for future exchanges and collaborations. The Forum was preceded by a dinner to welcome our guests and followed by tours of the Rhode Island Hospital and Brown University. The event concluded with a celebratory dinner.

Dr. Ramu Kharel has won the BMJ South Asia Award for his Nepal Poison Information Center pilot establishment project which is now operating 24/7. This center is the first of its kind in the country to improve healthcare outcomes and marks the beginning of a longer journey to scale and strengthen poisoning care throughout Nepal.

Daria Szkwarko, DO, MPH and co-PI Hussein Elias, MBChB, MMed, have been awarded a $6.5 million grant funded by Gates Foundation, Novartis, Eli Lilly and Company, and Merck through its Merck for Mothers initiative, with support from Panorama Global to support point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) education and care integration in western Kenya.

Brown Medical Student Awarded SAEMF Alli and Danielle Raja RAMS Medical Student Research Grant to Improve Healthcare Outcomes in Sub-Saharan Africa

Imagine a world where over 1 million children across 85 countries died from a single nutrient deficiency — deaths that could be prevented with a semi-annual vitamin supplement. Millions of lives saved can be attributed to the landmark US Agency for International Development (USAID)-supported trial of vitamin A supplementation in Indonesia (1978-1979), followed by replication trials, meta-analyses, World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines recommending regular high-dose vitamin A supplements and multilateral collaboration to provide vulnerable children with this nutrient (1,2).
Imagine a world without WHO child growth standards – standards that were developed from longitudinal data from children in the US, Brazil, Ghana, Oman, India and Norway, and now used in over 100 countries, including the US, to monitor child growth and identify malnutrition. Or a world where famine silently claims hundreds of thousands without warning, global data systems go blank, and nearly half of funding for emergency food aid vanishes.
This is a world without USAID and US membership in the WHO. Read More.

Adam C. Levine, MD, to lead Brown Center for Global Health Equity (CGHE). Adam C. Levine, MD, to lead Brown Center for Global Health Equity (CGHE) PROVIDENCE — In a letter to the Brown BioMed community, MUKESH K. JAIN, MD, Senior Vice President for Health Affairs and Dean of Medicine and Biological Sciences, announced that the Academic Priorities Committee of Brown University has approved the Center for Global Health Equity (CGHE) within the Division of Biology and Medicine. The CGHE is the successor to the Global Health Initiative (GHI), which was founded in 2009. Associate Dean of Global Health Equity ADAM C. LEVINE, MD, MPH, FACEP, professor of emergency medicine and international and public affairs, will serve as CGHE’s founding director.

The center’s focus will expand to include clinical residents and fellows, undergraduate students, and students participating in the Brown Gateways program, Leadership Institute, Brown-Tougaloo Partnership, and other pathways programs and to BioMed faculty engaged in health equity research both locally and globally.

With the broader goal of directly engaging and benefiting communities both locally in Rhode Island and around the world, the CGHE aspires to conduct cutting-edge research that bridges gaps in global health knowledge and practice with a particular focus on technological innovation, implementation science, refugee health, and global health ethics.

Application Deadline: August 11, 2024
BRIGHT Pathway is a 2-year longitudinal program designed to create and support a multidisciplinary community of residents who are interested in making global health part of their career. BRIGHT Pathway consists of quarterly meetings with guest speakers, along with a self-directed curriculum of core global health topics.