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About Us

In the pursuit of wellbeing, worldwide, we share knowledge, equip leaders, and build interdisciplinary, multisectoral teams to address urgent global health challenges.

A Note from our Founder

 

The Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health strives to enable collaborative programs in global health for residents, medical students, graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and undergraduates by reaching across geographic, cultural, economic, and gender boundaries to inspire a new generation to work for social change, justice, and increased equity in global health outcomes.

 

Michele Barry

Drs. Ben & A. Jess Shenson Professor, Senior Associate Dean, Global Health, Director, Center for Innovation in Global Health, Professor of Medicine & Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute and at the Freeman Spogli Institute

Our impact - by the numbers

60
SENT 60 RESIDENTS, FELLOWS, MEDICAL STUDENTS, AND FACULTY TO 20 COUNTRIES EVERY YEAR TO TEACH, TRAIN, AND LEAD PROJECTS.
$2M
Raised and awarded more than $2 million in seed grants to support the most innovative research in global health
150
Funded more than 75 post-doctoral fellows resulting in more than 150 peer-reviewed publications

Cross-cutting strengths

Interdisciplinary + Multi-sectional Collaboration

Stanford University brings together expertise from a variety of disciplines and multiple sectors to tackle the most complicated challenges and solve the most stubborn problems. Stanford fosters creative collaborations with local partners, academic experts, leaders of NGOs, and heads of state to translate knowledge into action.

Technological Innovation 
to Generate Solutions

Stanford created Silicon Valley and remains a nexus for the brightest minds in tech—from academia and industry. At the center of this prolific ecosystem, we can identify and influence technological strategies that can be scaled and shared to improve global health.

Excellence in Research Teaching and Clinical Care

Stanford’s founding charter pledges “to promote the public welfare by exercising an influence in behalf of humanity and civilization.” A purposeful university with a longstanding reputation for excellence, our name opens doors to decision-makers and attracts collaborators worldwide.

Our team

We are more than an academic center; we’re a community. Meet the people who share a passion for increasing wellbeing, worldwide.

Center leadership

Michele Barry

Senior Associate Dean and Director of the Center for Innovation in Global Health

Michele Barry

Senior Associate Dean and Director of the Center for Innovation in Global Health

Michele Barry, the Drs. Ben and A. Jess Shenson Professor of Medicine and Tropical Diseases, was elected to lead the Board of Directors for the Consortium of Universities for Global Health (CUGH) in 2019. The founder of the Stanford/Yale Johnson & Johnson Global Health Scholars Program, she has sent more than 1,000 physicians overseas to underserved areas. A past president of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH), Dr. Barry is also an elected member of the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences. A passionate clinician and scholar, she has sent hundreds of students around the world to create innovative global health programs.

Dr. Barry’s scholarly interests include tropical medicine, global health ethics, and the impact of climate change on megacities. She served on the Obama Women’s Health subcommittee; is a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; and sits on its global health board. Dr. Barry is a recipient of both the Elizabeth Blackwell Medal for outstanding contributions to women in the field of medicine and the Ben Kean Medal for dedication to clinical tropical medicine and impact on the training of students, fellows, and practitioners.

See Dr. Barry’s full profile here.

Steve Luby

Associate Dean for Global Health, Director of Research, Center for Innovation in Global Health

Steve Luby

Associate Dean for Global Health, Director of Research, Center for Innovation in Global Health

Dr. Luby studied philosophy and earned a Bachelor of Arts summa cum laude from Creighton University. He earned his medical degree from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School at Dallas and completed his residency in internal medicine at the University of Rochester-Strong Memorial Hospital. He studied epidemiology and preventive medicine at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Dr. Luby’s previous positions include directing the Centre for Communicable Diseases at the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Diseases Research, Bangladesh in Dhaka, Bangladesh from 2004 – 2012, conducting research and teaching epidemiology at the Aga Khan University in Karachi, Pakistan from 1993 – 1998, and working as an epidemiologist in the Foodborne and Diarrheal Diseases Branch of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Allison Phillips

Executive Director, Center for Innovation in Global Health

Allison Phillips

Executive Director, Center for Innovation in Global Health

Allison is passionate about multi-disciplinary approaches to improving the lives of women and children worldwide. Prior to joining CIGH, Allison was Deputy Director of the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Malaria Elimination Initiative where she joined during the start-up phase and co-led strategic planning, fundraising, grant management, donor and partner relations, and team operations for a team that grew to 60 with an annual budget of $12million.

Prior to joining UCSF, Allison lived in Tanzania where she worked with a large NGO to lead malaria and HIV prevention education programs in rural communities. With over 15 years of global public health experience, Allison also worked with McKinsey and Company to recommend investment opportunities in the private health sector across Africa, worked on HIV/AIDS prevention in Thailand, and researched the relationship between modern and traditional medicine in India. Allison graduated from Lewis and Clark College with a degree in Medical Anthropology, and now lives in Menlo Park with her husband and two young daughters.

Core staff

Lina Montes

Program Coordinator, Center for Innovation in Global Health

Lina Montes

Program Coordinator, Center for Innovation in Global Health

Lina serves as the Program Coordinator for Stanford’s Center for Innovation in Global Health, supporting the program and its team members in their commitment to Global Health. She also currently serves part-time as the program assistant for the Stanford Climate and Health student organization. Previously, she was the office coordinator for the Office of the Dean for the School of Medicine, where she worked to maintain office operations and support the Dean’s executive team. In June 2018, she graduated from UC Santa Cruz with a B.A. in Linguistics and Language Studies. There, she was also a part of UCSC’s Global Start program, serving as a resource to incoming international students throughout the orientation stage. Lina has an interest in helping others and getting people connected, so please reach out to her if you would like to be involved with CIGH.

Yosefa Gilon

Senior Program Manager, Center for Innovation in Global Health

Yosefa Gilon

Senior Program Manager, Center for Innovation in Global Health

Yosefa Gilon serves as the Senior Program Manager for Stanford’s Center for Innovation in Global Health, supporting all global health education initiatives. Yosefa joined Stanford University in 2014, where she managed short-term international programs at the Bing Overseas Studies Program. One of the programs she managed was the Community Health in Oaxaca course, an exciting opportunity for undergraduate students interested in community and global health. In 2019 she joined Stanford’s Computer Science Department where she managed international computer science education programs. She joined CIGH in 2022.

Yosefa has a B.A. in Psychology from U.C. Irvine and a M.A. in International Education from the School for International Training. She is very passionate about education equity and international education and has facilitated experiential education opportunities all over the world. While serving as the Logistics Director for THINK Global School, a traveling high school, she lived and worked in Argentina, Bhutan, Ecuador, Germany, India, Japan, and Thailand.

She is very excited to be collaborating with people across the university and beyond to bring global health education opportunities to the Stanford community.Feel free to reach out to her about anything global health education related.

Jamie Hansen

Communications Man., Center for Innovation in Global Health

Jamie Hansen

Communications Man., Center for Innovation in Global Health

Jamie Hansen joined the Center for Innovation in Global Health in the fall of 2021. She serves as Communications Manager, helping to amplify the work of the center and its fellows through strong storytelling and multimedia communications.

Before coming to Stanford, Jamie worked as director of communications at the Sonoma County Office of Education (SCOE) between 2015-2021. In this position, she developed SCOE’s strategic and crisis communications capacity, supporting her organization and the 40 school districts of Sonoma County through numerous crises and communications initiatives. This included responding the physical and mental health impacts of numerous devastating wildfires and navigating school policy during a global pandemic.

Prior to working in communications, she covered education and the environment as a print and multimedia journalist. She holds a master’s degree in journalism from Stanford and is accredited in public relations.

Jamie lives in Santa Rosa with her husband and two young daughters.

Erika Veidis

Human and Planetary Health Manager, Center for Innovation in Global Health

Erika Veidis

Human and Planetary Health Manager, Center for Innovation in Global Health

Erika Veidis is the Human and Planetary Health Manager for the Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health. Before joining the CIGH team, she spent three years at the Planetary Health Alliance, a non-profit organization housed at Harvard University focused on understanding and addressing the intersections between global environmental challenges and public health. In this role, she managed a global network of universities, NGOs, research institutes, and government entities and led community engagement, outreach, and education efforts. In addition to her work with the PHA, Erika conducted research in environmental economics, with a particular focus on microplastics and grassroots campaigns targeting relevant governmental and corporate policies, and advanced regenerative agriculture in rural Wisconsin. Most recently, Erika helped to launch a project highlighting Indigenous place names across California with the California Institute for Community, Art & Nature, which she continues to pursue on the side.
Erika graduated from Harvard in 2015 with a BA in Government and Mind/Brain/Behavior, holds an MBA from Cal Poly, and serves on the board of the Harvard Alumni for Agriculture and Food. She believes in the importance of integrated environmental and health action, locally-rooted economies, and cultivating a sense of responsibility to place. In her free time, she skis, hikes, writes, plays guitar, and enjoys spending time – especially outside – with family, friends, and the Latvian community.

Harleen Kaur

Social Media and Digital Outreach Assistant, Center for Innovation in Global Health

Harleen Kaur

Social Media and Digital Outreach Assistant, Center for Innovation in Global Health

Harleen Kaur (‘21/22) is an undergraduate at Stanford majoring in Anthropology. This past year, while on a leave of absence, she served as the Director of Research and Design for the South Asian Winter Camp, was a community researcher at ASRA: The Panjabi Alcohol Resource, and continued her work as a research assistant in the Intimate Partner Violence Research Lab.

At Stanford she is an active member of various South Asian cultural spaces, including South Asian Society, Sikh Students’ Association, and Stanford Bhangra and volunteers with SHAR(ED) and the Global Health Student Council.

Harleen’s global health interests include narratives of addiction and circuits of care within Panjabi communities, intergenerational trauma and its manifestation with health and wellbeing, and gender based violence within immigrant communities.

Fanja Ramilison

Executive Assistant to Michele Barry, Center for Innovation in Global Health

Fanja Ramilison

Executive Assistant to Michele Barry, Center for Innovation in Global Health

Fanja Ramilison serves as Executive Assistant for the Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health supporting Dr. Michele Barry and the CIGH team.

She joined Stanford Health Care in 2017 as the HR office administrative staff lead of the Chief Human Resources Officer and transferred to CIGH in 2022.

Born in Madagascar, Fanja left her native country to pursue her international studies in Europe. She graduated from Excelia Business School in La Rochelle, France with a bachelor’s degree in Marketing and Business Administration. She settled in France for 14 years before relocating to the Bay Area. She is passionate about world humanitarian activities that fight against child hunger and poverty, and initiatives that preserve Madagascar’s environment and endemic wildlife.

Fanja is fluent in three languages including English, French and Malagasy. In her free time, she enjoys swimming, playing tennis and making classic French dishes. She lives in West Santa Clara with her husband and three young sons.