Robert Suskind & Leslie Lewinter-Suskind Faculty & Medical Student Global Health Award, 2025
Announcing the Winners of the Lewinter-Suskind Global Health Awards: Dr. Robert Gross and Modesty Obasohan Celebration on May 15th, in BRB 253 | 12 - 1:30pm
The Annual Robert Suskind, C’59, M’63 and Leslie Lewinter-Suskind Faculty & Medical Student Prize in Global Health
In 2013, Penn alum Robert Suskind, MD (C’59, M’63) and his wife, Leslie Lewinter-Suskind, MSS, MFA, generously endowed an annual award recognizing the graduating medical student who demonstrates a commitment to addressing critical global health challenges in their medical career. To complement this prize, in 2021, Bob and Leslie endowed another prize for a PSOM faculty member who exemplifies their lifelong commitment to improving global health and access to care through training partnerships, research, or clinical work.
A celebration for this year’s recipients will be held on May 15th in BRB 253.
Meet the 2025 Winners!
Bio
Robert Gross, MD, MSCE
Congratulations to Dr. Robert Gross on receiving the 2025 Lewinter-Suskind Global Health Faculty Award in recognition for his exceptional mentorship in global health! Over nearly 20 years, Dr. Gross’ work with partners in Botswana has focused on HIV research, capacity-building, and aligning with the country's evolving health priorities. Through research mentorship and a NIH D43 capacity-building grant, he has trained a diverse range of health professionals, many of whom have gone on to hold leadership roles in Botswana’s health and academic sectors. His dedication to mentoring has not only shaped the future of health outcomes and research independence in Botswana, ensuring a lasting impact on the nation's health outcomes.
Modesty Obasohan, MD(c)
Congratulations to Modesty Obasohan (MS4) on receiving the 2025 Suskind-Lewinter Student Award! From her early involvement as an MS1 in remote research with the Botswana-UPenn Partnership during the COVID pandemic to her year-out as an NIH Fogarty Global Health Scholar in Ghana working on technology and pain management for sickle cell patients, Modesty has demonstrated an outstanding commitment to global health. As an MS4 Modesty continued her training with a clinical rotation in Botswana and recently presented a poster on her work in Ghana at the 2025 CUGH Conference. We applaud Modesty for her accomplishments and her dedication to improving healthcare worldwide.
About Bob Suskind and Leslie Lewinter-Suskind
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 traveled 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.