Published: 06/23/2026

By Jamie Hansen, Communications Manager, and Catherine Wu, Communications Assistant

A seed grant will support an initiative to improve outcomes for pediatric burn patients such as this child at Kiruddu Hospital in Uganda. (Image
courtesy of Anna Santos, ReSurge International)

Stanford’s Center for Innovation in Global Health (CIGH) is excited to fund 16 new global health seed grant awards that address emerging and persistent global health challenges from Bangladesh to Guatemala to Uganda. These grants were chosen to enable multidisciplinary Stanford teams to develop novel, low-cost, and creative solutions alongside local healthcare providers.

Since 2011, Stanford’s global health seed grant program has supported nearly 130 early-stage research projects, emphasizing cross-disciplinary initiatives that are guided by local needs and expertise to promote health equity. These efforts have sparked innovative responses to urgent global health threats, including Ebola, COVID-19, and climate change, while fostering low-cost health innovations and equitable research partnerships.

This year’s projects span a wide range of disciplines and countries to address critical and emerging global health issues. They include: 

  • Preventing infant blindness in Syria through telemedicine and educational initiatives to strengthen local health systems
  • Improving gastrointestinal cancer detection at a Rwandan teaching hospital by establishing smartphone workflows and an AI-powered biobank
  • Investigating the unintended impacts of conservation efforts on human trafficking in Brazil’s arc of deforestation
  • Two AI-powered initiatives to improve detection of climate-driven waterborne and childhood disease surges in Ethiopia and Madagascar  

“This year’s projects stand out for their locally led, innovative approaches to critical global health threats, from climate-driven disease risk to the rise of antimicrobial resistance,” said Dr. Michele Barry, director of CIGH and the senior associate dean for global health in the School of Medicine. “I’m thrilled that CIGH can partner with Stanford organizations and departments across many disciplines to support these vital projects.”

The research projects would not be possible without the generous support of CIGH’s funding partners. These partners are: Stanford Medicine’s departments of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine, Emergency Medicine, Division of Oncology, Ophthalmology, Pathology, Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, and Surgery; the Woods Institute for the Environment; the School of Medicine Dean’s Office; the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute; the Maternal and Child Health Research Institute; Stanford Health Policy; the Stanford Center for Human and Planetary Health; and the Stanford King Center on Global Development.

See the full list of awarded projects below and click each project link to learn more. Applications for next year’s seed grant awards will open in early 2027.
 

2026 Global Health Seed Grant Winners

AI-Driven Early Warning System for Childhood Disease Surges in Ethiopia

  • Principal Investigators: Rishi Mediratta, MD, MSc, MA;  Lulu Muhe, MD, PhD; Amanuel Moges, MD, General Practitioner, Addis Ababa University, Department of Pediatrics and Child Health
  • Funders: Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health and Maternal and Child Health Research Institute (MCHRI)

AI-Validated Citizen Science Monitoring of Water Quality and Ecosystem Health in Madagascar

  • Principal Investigators: Mark Krasnow, MD, PhD; Dr. Manu Prakash, PhD; Dr. Robert Siegel, MD, PhD
  • Funder: Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health

Borderline Care: Advancing Emergency Medical Services in Northern Mexico

  • Principal Investigators: Jennifer A. Newberry, MD, JD, MSc; Esmeralda Melgoza, PhD, MPH, CHES; Eli Carrillo, MD; Peter D’Souza, MD; Antero Godina Garcia, PhD
  • Funders: Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health and Department of Emergency Medicine

Decentralizing Trauma Mental Health Care in Guatemala: A Digital Training and Mentorship Model for Primary Care Physicians

  • Principal and Co-Investigators: Daryn Reicherter, MD; Gabriela Asturias, MD; Franco Mascayano, MPH; Rebecca Walker, MD, MPH; Lisa Brown, PhD, ABPP; Joaquin Barnoya, MD
  • Funders: Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health and Departments of Emergency Medicine and Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences

Establishing a Smartphone-Based Digital Pathology Workflow and AI-Powered Multimodal Gastrointestinal Cancer Biobank at the University Teaching Hospital of Kigali

  • Principal and Co-Investigators: Alarice Lowe, MD; Marie Claire Ndayisaba, MD MMed (Anat. Path.); Brooke Howitt, MD, Irene Adler Professor or Surgical Pathology; Greg Charville, MD, PhD, associate professor of pathology; Cindy Wang, MD, clinical associate professor of pathology; and Rachel Frauches, MD, pathology resident
  • Funder: Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health

Effects of Air Pollution and Extreme Heat on Brain Health in Children and Young Adults in Delhi

  • Principal Investigators: Burcin Ikiz, PhD; A. Desiree LaBeaud, MD, MS
  • Funders: Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health and Maternal and Child Health Research Institute

Extreme Weather Events and Human Trafficking Risk in the Rohingya Refugee Camps

  • Principal Investigators: Beatriz Magaloni, PhD; Farjana Jahan, MD; Stephen Luby, PhD; Gabrielle Wong-Parodi, PhD
  • Funders: Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health, Stanford Center for Human & Planetary Health, and Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment

Health Literacy and Informational Needs in CKM Care in Latin America: A Qualitative Needs-Finding Study to Explore Possible AI-Assisted Solutions for Cardiovascular Health Communication

  • Principal Investigators: Paul Schmiedmayer, PhD; Fatima Rodriguez, MD, MPH
  • Funders: Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health and Stanford Cardiovascular Institute

Implementing Digital Health to Increase Global Accessibility to Genetic Testing

  • Principal Investigators: Gerneiva Parkinson, MD, MHS; Ami Bhatt, MD, PhD; Allison Kurian MD, MSc; James Dickerson, MD, MS
  • Funders: Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health and Stanford Medicine’s Division of Oncology

Improving Safety and Quality of Care and Transport of Critically Ill Patients in a Rural Tanzanian Hospital through a Hybrid Critical Care Curriculum

  • Principal Investigators: Cynthia Khoo, MD PhD; Ben Deverett, MD, PhD
  • Funders: Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health and Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative, and Pain Medicine

Modelling Infant Immune and Microbiota Dynamics to Predict Vaccine Responses

  • Principal Investigators: Florian Bach, PhD; Ami Bhatt, MD, PhD; Prasanna Jaganathan, MD
  • Funders: Stanford King Center for Global Development, Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health

Perioperative Vital Signs Directed Therapy in a Low-Resource Burn Unit: A Needs Assessment and Educational Intervention at Kiruddu National Referral Hospital, Uganda

  • Principal Investigators: Tiffany Kung, MD; Mark Singleton, MD; James Chang, MD
  • Funders: Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health and Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative, and Pain Medicine

Precision Diagnostics for Oral Cancer in Northern Sri Lanka

  • Principal Investigators: Mobeen Rahman, MD; Ida Chrishanthi Rajasooriyar, MBBS, MD, FRANZCR;  Nithya Ranasinghe, MBBS, MDl;  Sheren Younes, MD, PhD; Yasodha Natkunam, MD, PhD
  • Funders: Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health & Stanford Department of Pathology

Screening and Treating Retinopathy of Prematurity in Syria

  • Principal Investigators: Ahmad Al-Moujahid, MD, PhD, MPH; Arthur Brant, MD; Prithvi Mruthyunjaya, MD, MHS
  • Funders: Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health and Department of Ophthalmology

The Unintended Human Cost of Global Conservation: Modern Slavery in Brazil’s Arc of Deforestation

  • Principal Investigators: Grant Miller, PhD; Kimberly Babiarz, PhD
  • Funders: Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health and Stanford Health Policy

Using Far-UVC to Prevent Surgical Site Infections in Bangladeshi Operating Rooms

  • Principal Investigators: Grant Higerd-Rusli, MD, PhD; Seth Ari Sim-Son Hoffman, MD, MS; Stephen Luby, MD
  • Funders: Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health and Stanford Department of Surgery