Center for
Global Health

CGH Funding

CGH provides seed funding grants to faculty at the University of Pennsylvania (with priority given to CGH Scholars) to enable and support global health research projects. The primary purpose of these awards is to strengthen the individual’s ability to secure subsequent funding from current and future sources. 

Robert Suskind, C’59, M’63 and Leslie Lewinter-Suskind Faculty Prize in Global Health

Non-CGH Funding

Penn's Global Support Service (GSS) provides guidance for faculty who wish to pursue global fellowships or sabbaticals. More information can be found here. 

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CGH travel stipends are intended to encourage as many students as possible to gain exposure to international health care systems and research environments, but stipends are not meant to cover all travel expenses. Students should expect out-of-pocket costs and should plan for their trip accordingly.

To be eligible for this funding, students must submit their completed GHE registration (Parts 1 & 2) (or the CGH Registration for IHS Rotations) to CGH no later than 6 weeks prior to their departure date. After completing the registration and receiving written approval, you can expect the level of support indicated in the table below. 

AIRFARE STIPEND: After student submits registration, the airfare stipend is dispersed before trip departure. Student can receive UP TO to the amount listed for the travel destination, based on airfare expenses.

POST-TRAVEL STIPEND: After completing post-travel requirements (evaluation and report), student will receive a reimbursement of $500*. The post-travel stipend is intended for travel-related medications/vaccines, living expenses, and housing.

*Travelers to Botswana have housing covered. The post-travel reimbursement for Botswana is $250

Restrictions

CGH Travel Stipends are not available for:

1. Experiences that are shorter than six weeks (must be 6 work weeks in country, not counting travel)
2. Experiences in locations where there is a current Extreme Travel Risk
3. Students who are funded by any other Penn entity
4. Students with "year-out" OR general funding listed on this webpage
5. Students with any of the special funding, e.g. Max Kade (Austria) and McMac Student Travel Award for Indigenous Health
6. More than two global health experiences while a medical student at Penn
7. Students who have used frequent flier miles or other non-monetary tender to purchase airfare*
8. Experiences for which you do not complete the GHE registration AT LEAST six weeks prior to your departure for the global health experience location. There are no exceptions.

* Per Penn's policy, the use of frequent flier miles or other non-monetary sources cannot be reimbursed or used. If any non-monetary source (in any amount) is used to purchase a ticket then you will forfeit the airfare portion of your award.

CGH is able to offer travel stipends thanks to the generosity of:

• The Vice Dean for Academic Programs at Penn's School of Medicine
• David Kaufman (M’56) Memorial Fund
• Kaufman Family Global Health Fellowship
• Michael (M’84) and Susannah Kramer Global Health Fellowships
• Measey Foundation Fellowship in Global Health
• Marian Stegemoeller Fellowships

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The Center for Global Health encourages Penn Med students to share the outcomes from their global health research at Penn and other venues. In support of this, CGH will provide up to $500 for MD, PhD or MD/PhD students to present their work as posters or oral presentations in external conferences or symposia. CGH conference funding may be applied toward conference registration, airfare, local transportation; lodging and meals. CGH funding cannot be combined with other sources of funding.

CGH offers 5 conference travel awards each fiscal year. If you are interested in funding, please contact CGH in advance to see if there are awards remaining. Eligibility for conference funding: 

• Student must be presenting research to be considered for funding.
• The content of the research must be global. 
• Students are under consideration for funding for one conference per fiscal year (July-June).

To apply for funding email the following information to CGH:

• The invitation to present
• The accepted poster or abstract (if applicable)

CHOP Global Health Conference

For the annual CHOP Global Health Conference, registration for students accepted to present research is covered by CGH. For students interested in attending the conference, a discounted registration price will be available through CGH. CGH will send out information about discounted registration via email. A limited number of discounted registration rates are available on a first come, first-served basis.

Please contact the Center for Global Health with any questions about conference funding.

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The Harvey M. Friedman Global Health Travel Award is a competitive award designed to encourage and support exceptional PhD students in the pursuit of a global health experience to Botswana through the Botswana-UPenn Partnership. The fellowship was established in 2017 in honor of Harvey M. Friedman, MD founding Director of the Botswana-UPenn Partnership. The award will be applied to travel expenses related to a global health research experience to Botswana.

Dr. Harvey Friedman is known for his longtime service as the chief of the Infectious Diseases Division, his research on immune evasion strategies of Herpes Simplex Virus, and founding the Botswana-UPenn Partnership. Dr. Friedman served as Director of the Botswana-UPenn Partnership from 2001-2016 during which time more 1000 Penn faculty, residents, and students traveled to Botswana to work and learn in the Botswana clinical setting. His career represents a visionary commitment to global health and improving health and healthcare capacity in Botswana.

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According to the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery, 5 billion people lack access to safe and affordable surgical care.  Worldwide, there is an unmet need of 143 million procedures annually.  Accordingly, the Center for Global Health has teamed up with the Agnew Surgical Society and Penn Global Surgery Group to establish a summer fellowship for first-year medical students interested in research in global surgery.  The student selected as the Summer Global Surgery Fellow will have access to funding through the Center for Global Health for travel expenses as well as Agnew Summer Fellowship funding for conference travel and work performed before and after travel abroad.

Students will need to identify a mentor in the Department of Surgery and devise a project related to global surgery with a travel component.  Pre-approval of mentors is required prior to application.  Accepted applicants will need to complete additional paperwork for travel funding.

Eligibility and information on how to apply can be found on the Agnew Surgical Society webpage.

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First awarded to a graduating Perelman School of Medicine student in 2014, the Robert Suskind and Leslie Lewinter-Suskind Award in Global Health is awarded to the graduating student who exhibits the greatest intent on helping solve the critical health problems of our fragile planet. It is awarded with gratitude and hope.

Eligibility

Graduating Penn medical students who will have completed:

• MD/PhD, global health dissertation
• MD/MPH, global health track
• The Global Health Certificate Requirements 
• Year-Out research experience in global health

Application

CGH will send application information to all graduating students in the Fall semester. Deadline is typically Jan 2.

About the Robert Suskind and Leslie Lewinter-Suskind Prize in Global Health

Robert Suskind and Leslie Lewinter met in 1962, during Bob’s third year of medical school when, as a Smith-Klein-French fellow, he was to spend the summer in Cameroon. Since the beginning of their marriage, which they spent in the Peace Corps in Senegal, they have lived, worked and travelled together on every continent except Antarctica (so far!), including taking their four children out of school for a year to travel the globe, observing medical care internationally.

Robert Suskind, MD graduated from the University of Pennsylvania College/Wharton ('59) and Medical School ('63). After pediatric residency at Johns Hopkins, he became Field Director of MALAN, an NIH-funded project in Chiang Mai, Thailand, initiating his research on malnutrition's effect on the immune system and the optimal treatment of the malnourished child. His MIT-Boston Children's PhD program in clinical nutrition for pediatricians was pivotal in raising awareness of nutrition’s importance in clinical medicine. Dr. Suskind’s international experiences include Director of the ICDDRB in Bangladesh and advisor to the Patan Academy of Health Sciences in Kathmandu, Nepal. He has been a Chairman of Pediatrics for twenty years and Dean of three medical schools.

Leslie Lewinter-Suskind received her BS from Penn State, an MSS from Bryn Mawr Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research and an MFA from UNO. After Senegal, she directed an inner-city program under the OEO ("War on Poverty"), followed by a study determining the need for infant care centers in the barriadas of Lima, Peru for Johns Hopkins. As Director of Applied Nutrition at MALAN, she set up follow-up, etiology and intervention studies in childhood malnutrition in the villages surrounding Chiang Mai. At LSU, she directed the International Program for the Departments of Psychiatry and Pediatrics.

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The McCracken/MacCracken (McMac) Student Travel Award for Indigenous Health provides financial assistance to two final year Perelman School of Medicine students participating in educational and experiential learning at Indigenous health sites in the United States.

Dr. Joan MacCracken MD ’71 established this award on the occasion of her 50^th Medical School Reunion to provide Penn medical students the unique opportunity to challenge their cultural biases, familiar surroundings, and medical aptitude. In 1974, after completing her Pediatric Residency in Denver, Colorado, Dr. MacCracken and her husband moved to Crownpoint, New Mexico to work at the Indian Health Service Hospital. Her two years of medical service with the Navajo people, and later with the Yup’ik natives of Alaska and the Miskito people of Nicaragua, were stimulating, rewarding and memorable. Dr. MacCracken hopes to encourage Penn Med students to experience culturally different medical environments and in parallel to grow in their professionalism.

Eligibility

• Final year Penn medical students confirmed in a clinical elective at an affiliated Indian Health Service (IHS) site. Affiliated IHS sites found here.
• Interested students must receive a confirmed placement from IHS before applying for the travel award.
• Students must be in good standing and approved by the Perelman School of Medicine to schedule away electives.
• Applications must be submitted and approved prior to travel.

Conditions of Award

• Award amount is $1500. Award cannot be combined with CGH Travel Stipend for IHS rotations.
• Applicants must complete all pre- and post-travel requirements as set by the Center for Global Health (CGH).
• University of Pennsylvania travel policies shall apply to the McMac Student Travel Award. Students must complete a Concur report upon return from travel to receive award money.
• Award recipients will submit a report of their global health experience to CGH within 6 weeks of return to campus. Any aligned photographs must comply with consent for use regulations.

Application

The McMac Student Travel Award Application must be submitted at least one month prior to the departure date. Process for application:

1. Notify/coordinate the intent to conduct an off-site rotation with Advisory Dean
2. Apply for rotation with IHS site(s) of your choosing
3. Receive placement/confirmation for rotation from IHS
4. Submit CGH registration for IHS rotations (no later than 6 weeks prior to departure)
5. Submit application for McMac Student Travel Award

About the McMac Student Travel Award for Indigenous Health

Dr. Joan MacCracken MD ‘71 established the McCracken/MacCracken Travel Award to honor her grandfather, Dr. Josiah Calvin McCracken MD ’01, and his Penn alumni descendants.

Dr. Josiah Calvin McCracken, 1874-1962, Penn MD ‘01 was a dedicated medical missionary in China for 36 years, an outstanding All-American athlete at Penn in football and track and field, a distinguished University of Pennsylvania alumnus, and a devoted father of eight children and twenty-three grandchildren. “Joe” was born in 1874 in Tennessee, raised in Kansas, and began his college career at Cooper College in Sterling, KS. After transferring to the University of Pennsylvania, he completed five years of study, obtaining his medical degree in 1901 and later completing a surgical internship at Pennsylvania Hospital in 1905.

In 1906 The University of Pennsylvania Christian Association asked Dr. McCracken to visit Canton, China to explore the potential to develop a medical school at that location. He accepted this challenge, and with his new bride Helen, he left to begin what ultimately became a 36-year medical missionary life. After seven busy years in Canton, he moved to Shanghai to become Dean of a newly combined University of Pennsylvania Medical School at St. John’s University from 1914-1942. Under his leadership, the school and faculty educated hundreds of Chinese physicians, many who traveled to the United States for further medical training at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Josiah C. McCracken was beloved and respected by his Chinese colleagues and trainees. As one former student and physician wrote, “few could match him in human heartedness and kind deeds.” Giving the eulogy for Dr. McCracken in 1962, Bishop Y.Y. Tsu said, “he invested all the working years of his long and fruitful life for the advancement of medical education among our people.”

Joe supported his alma mater in many ways including taking his grandchildren to Penn football games. In 1938 he was honored with the Alumni Award of Merit by the Varsity Club, and in 1961 he was named the University’s Distinguished Senior Alumnus.

The McCracken and MacCracken families are proud of their 120+ year association with their alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania. Click here to learn more about the McCracken/MacCracken’s longstanding commitment to Penn.

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• Stolley Travel Awards
• CCEB Summer Research Fellowship
• The Africa Center (FLAS -Foreign Language & Area Studies Fellowships)
• Center for Undergraduate/Graduate Research/Fellowships (Boren/Cambridge/Fulbright, etc)
• East Asian Studies Fellowships (FLAS +)
• Foreign Language & Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowships
• Middle East Studies Fellowships (FLAS)
• South Asia Center Fellowships (FLAS)
• Jewish Studies Department (Goldfein & Brenner Awards)

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General Funding

• American Medical Association Seed Grant Research Program
• American Medical Women's Association Overseas Assistance Grants
• American Society of Microbiology
• American Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene Funding Opportunities
• CDC Epidemiology Elective Program
• Gates Foundation:  Grand Challenges in Global Health
• Hispanic-Serving Health Professions Association
• Indicorps (for students of Indian heritage)
• Infectious Diseases Society of America - Medical Scholars Program
• Johns Hopkins School of Public Health Sommer Scholars Program (for MPH)
• NIH-funded short term grants (please check with CGH)
• National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities
  • California State University/Los Angeles Basin (projects in Argentina, England, & Thailand)
  • Mid-South Coalition (projects in Brazil & Uganda)
  • Hampton University (projects in Kenya, Nigeria, & Tanzania)
  • University of Alabama (projects in Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Guatemala, India, Jamaica, & Peru)
• New York Academy of Medicine David E. Rogers Fellowship
• Sara's Wish Foundation Scholarship

Year-Out Funding

This is a short list of currently known funding/opportunities. We are continuing to update this list.
Please note that you should see the Registrar to discuss the financial implications of taking a year out (i.e. leave of absence vs. active student).

• Fulbright-Fogarty Awards in Public Health
• Fogarty Global Health Scholars (Global Health and Clinical Research)

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