Awards
July 15, 2025
Research Scientist Dr. Emily Begnel receives early career award to study antimicrobial resistance and its effects on gut health and HIV exposure in children
Categories: Awards, Children, Gut Health and Child Survival, HIV and Co-Infections, Research
Congratulations to Dr. Emily Begnel, Research Scientist with Global WACh, for receiving a Thrasher Research Fund Early Career Award to fund “The prevalence of antimicrobial resistance and effects on gut health among children who are HIV-exposed but uninfected.” The award funds early career investigators and their development towards independent research in child health. Dr. Begnel will conduct her research under the mentorship of Drs. Jennifer Slyker and Patricia Pavlinac (UW Global Health and Epidemiology), and collaborate with Dr. Ana Weil (UW School of Medicine) and the Weil Lab.
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is rising globally and threatens public health by decreasing effectiveness of antibiotics in treating infections. Children who are HIV-exposed receive the antibiotic cotrimoxazole to prevent a range of bacterial infections; however, there is concern that it may contribute to the development of AMR in these children. There is urgency to better understand the dynamics of AMR development and spread, particularly among children in low- and middle-income countries where AMR is prevalent. Pathogens can transfer resistance genes to the bacteria in the gut microbiome, potentially contributing to long-term AMR. (more…)
June 26, 2025
Global WACh staff leads, Kellie List and Alyson Shumays, receive 2025 DGH Outstanding Staff Awards nominations
Categories: Awards
Every year, the Department of Global Health recognizes outstanding staff for their dedication and many contributions to the department. This year’s list of Outstanding Staff Award nominees included two of Global WACh’s leaders who guide, inspire, and empower others to achieve our common goals. Read about their contributions below: (more…)
June 11, 2025
Lisa Orii receives Global Innovation Fund Award to integrate AI in app-based person-centered contraception services in Kenya
Categories: Awards, Certificate Program, Contraception, Family Planning, Research, students
Congratulations to Lisa Orii, PhD candidate in the School of Computer Science & Engineering and Global WACh Graduate Certificate Program, for receiving a 2025 UW Global Innovation Fund Award. The fund supports transformative cross-college, cross-continent research collaborations and global Husky learning experiences at UW.
Lisa will work with researchers at UW and Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) on a project titled, “Co-Design of Chatbots for App-Supported Person-Centered Contraceptive Decision Support among Adolescent Girls and Young Women in Kenya in the Pharmacy Setting.” The research team includes Drs. Elizabeth Harrington (UW Global Health and Obstetrics & Gynecology), Elizabeth Bukusi (KEMRI), Serah Gitome (KEMRI), and Richard Anderson (UW Computer Science & Engineering). (more…)
June 5, 2025
Tessa Concepcion receives UW School of Public Health Excellence Award for Outstanding Doctoral Student
Congratulations to Tessa Concepcion for receiving the UW School of Public Health (SPH)’s 2025 Excellence Award for Outstanding Doctoral Student! The annual award celebrates members of the SPH community for their dedication, service, and many contributions to public health. Tessa recently graduated and trained as a Predoctoral Fellow under Global WACh faculty mentors including Drs. Grace John-Stewart and Jillian Pintye. She has joined the center in a temporary research staff role.
Tessa holds a PhD in Global Health Implementation Science from the University of Washington and an MS in Global Health from Duke University. Her research centers on designing, implementing, and evaluating evidence-based interventions to support the sexual and reproductive health of pregnant and postpartum women in low-resource settings. Her doctoral work examined early implementation factors for integrating long-acting PrEP into antenatal care in Kenya. Tessa previously led a national study on the burden of pediatric surgical conditions in Somaliland and has expertise in mixed methods research, perinatal mental health, mental health systems analysis, and intervention delivery.
May 15, 2025
Dr. Taylor Hendrixson, UW Pediatrics Assistant Professor, receives 2025 CFAR New Investigator Award
Categories: Awards, Children, Research
Congratulations to Dr. Taylor Hendrixson, Assistant Professor in UW Pediatrics, for receiving a 2025 UW/Fred Hutch Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) New Investigator Award! The two-year award focuses on supporting early career investigators to conduct independent HIV research and apply for future funding to continue their HIV/AIDS research careers.
Dr. Hendrixson is a neonatologist, pediatric infectious disease physician and faculty within the UW Department of Pediatrics. His research has focused on improving maternal and early infant nutrition to optimize growth and improve long-term outcomes in low- and middle-income settings. He works on clinical and clinical-translational trials targeting populations at high-risk for nutritional deficiencies and growth faltering. He is the PI of a K23 award investigating multi-omic interactions of the maternal-breastmilk-infant triad and associations with clinical outcomes among women living with HIV and their infants HIV-exposed uninfected in Kenya.
With support from the new award, Dr. Hendrixson will investigate anemia and iron status in pregnancy among women living with HIV and associations with neurodevelopmental outcomes of children HIV-exposed uninfected to guide future interventional studies. (more…)
Postdoctoral Scholar-Fellow Dr. Jillian Neary receives 2025 CFAR New Investigator Award
Categories: Awards, Children, Research
Congratulations to Dr. Jillian Neary, Postdoctoral Scholar-Fellow with Global WACh, for receiving a 2025 UW/Fred Hutch Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) New Investigator Award! The two-year award focuses on supporting early career investigators to conduct independent HIV research and apply for future funding to continue their HIV/AIDS research careers.
Dr. Neary’s past work focused on strategies to increase pediatric HIV testing and improve HIV care for adolescents with HIV. Recently, her work focused on molecular epidemiology including HIV viral control among children with HIV and biomarkers of biological aging among children who were exposed to HIV in utero.
With support from the new award, she plans to explore whether breastfeeding and human milk oligosaccharide composition are associated with child telomere length (TL) among children in Kenya who were exposed to HIV in utero. The evidence fills an important need to further understand how breastfeeding may influence short- and long-term health outcomes.
April 25, 2025
MAMMS-IYCF study team wins Top Abstract Award at the 2025 KEMRI Annual Scientific and Research Conference
Categories: Awards, Gut Health and Child Survival, HIV, Research
MAMMS-IYCF study team members participated in a live Q&A session at KASH 2025.
“A pilot study to develop and test a two-way SMS Platform to recognize and prevent wasting among HIV-infected and HIV-exposed uninfected children in Kenya” summarized how Dr. Edemba and a collaborative team from UW and Kenya Medical Research Institute adapted the Maternally Administrated Malnutrition Monitoring System (MAMMS) mHealth platform – in which caregivers measure their child’s mid-upper arm circumference on a weekly basis and communicate color-coded findings with healthcare workers via SMS text message – to include messages on infant and young child feeding (IYCF). The study team integrated these tailored messages and administered them to caregivers seeking care for children exposed to HIV at the Homa Boy and Migroi County referral hospitals over a two year period. (more…)
March 20, 2025
Enterics for Global Health (EFGH) Coordination Team nominated for UW Distinguished Staff Award
Categories: Awards, Gut Health and Child Survival
Staff members of the Enterics for Global Health (EFGH) Coordination Team have been nominated for a University of Washington (UW) Distinguished Staff Award in recognition of their contributions to advancing equity within global health research consortium models and implementing systems and programs that support early career investigators and researchers in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
The team includes (pictured top row from right to left): Hannah Atlas (Research Manager), Erika Feutz (Data Manager), Sean Galagan (Senior Data Manager), Anya Lewin (Program Operations Specialist). Pictured bottom row from right to left: Chloe Morozoff (Research Assistant), Sonia Rao (Program Specialist), Olivia Schultes (Data Manager), and Alyson Shumays (Global WACh Co-Director as Program Manager). (more…)
December 2, 2024
Enterics for Global Health (EFGH) Phase C aims to assess policymaker preferences on Shigella vaccine characteristics
Categories: Awards, Gut Health and Child Survival, Implementation Science, Research
The Enterics for Global Health (EFGH): Shigella surveillance study was launched in 2022 and aims to establish incidence and consequences of Shigella diarrhea among children 6-35 months in Bangladesh, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Pakistan, Peru, and The Gambia and inform future Shigella vaccine trial planning. The study protocol has been published in a supplement in Open Forum of Infectious Diseases. During Phases A and B, the EFGH Consortium built a robust collaborative research infrastructure to facilitate shared scientific decision making and protocol standardization, and recently completed enrollment of 9,476 participants in August 2024.
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November 27, 2024
Researchers awarded new grant to test implementation strategies to scale-up transitional care among youth living with HIV in Kenya
Categories: Awards, HIV and Co-Infections, Research
As more children and adolescents living with HIV survive into adulthood, maintaining successful and uninterrupted transitions into adult HIV care clinics has become a priority in the HIV/AIDS research community. Adolescents having “grown up” under pediatric HIV care may experience deep loss of their support system and feel less prepared to assume responsibility for themselves in adult care. The transition is a vulnerable point when adolescents are at risk of disengagement from HIV care altogether. It is critical that they maintain uninterrupted HIV care to stay healthy, maintain low viral load, and reduce further transmission.
Since 2016, Global WACh investigators Drs. Irene Njuguna, Kristin Beima-Sofie, Grace John-Stewart, and Dalton Wamalwa have led efforts to engage the Ministry of Health and local communities in Kenya in the development of the Adolescent Transition Package (ATP), a healthcare worker toolkit that includes structured educational materials and tracking tools to facilitate the transition process. (more…)
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