Global Health and Infectious Disease Track

SARS-CoV-2 has enough ongoing coverage and other topics in this track are currently (or historically) not receiving enough attention. In that light, the goals of the Global Health and Infectious Disease Track include:

Within the context of infectious disease and global health, focusing on likely long-term areas of increasing need such as growing global inequity, forced displacement, food/nutrition scarcity, climate change, neglected diseases, and antimicrobial resistance.
Within those subject areas, to present fresh and forward-thinking content. We are interested in recent innovations, transformations in thought, approach, and outlook, as well as sustainable and environmentally responsible initiatives.
We are especially interested in collaborative work products and partnerships that seek to grow organic capability, resources, and agency in low and middle income countries as well as amongst marginalized communities worldwide.
To provide a platform for a diverse range of faculty and student experiences, voices, work, perspectives, and visions.
To provide meaningful interaction between presenters and attendees.
To support networking and to connect attendees to valuable infectious disease and global health resources.

Schedule Overview

Session #1 (11 AM – 12 PM): Global Health/Infectious Disease Student Presentations

Learn about current infectious disease / global health issues, with a focus on communities affected, socioeconomic risk factors, future outlook, research gaps and opportunity for engagement. The goal for every presentation is to spark interest and highlight ways students can engage with the issues now and in their future careers.

Session #2 (1 PM – 2 PM): Global Health/Infectious Disease Faculty Presentations.

Faculty Presenters

Pranay Sinha, MD

Pranay Sinha is a post-doctoral fellow at Boston University. His primary interest is in the relationship between undernutrition & TB which he explores through epidemiological studies & health economic modeling. Clinically, he works as an Infectious Diseases physician at Boston Medical Center.

Dr. Amy Bei, PhD

Dr. Amy Kristine Bei is an Assistant Professor at the Yale School of Public Health whose research interests in Plasmodium – the causative agent of malaria – lie at the intersection between population genetics, genomics, molecular genetics, epidemiology, and immunology. Her current research uses a translational systems biology approach to study the impact of antigenic diversity on host-pathogen-vector interactions. She also works on malaria vaccine candidate discovery and validation, studying the functional consequences of naturally arising genetic diversity. Dr. Bei has ongoing research projects in Senegal in addition to many active collaborations in Sub-Saharan African countries in both East and West Africa.