The Yale Institute for Global Health (YIGH) has selected Dr. Kiran Sheikh and Dr. Brian Wahl to receive the Fall 2025 Global Health Spark Award. The $10,000 award provides initial funding to support global health research initiatives and partnerships among YIGH-affiliated faculty. The winners were selected based on five criteria: innovation, feasibility, sustainability, anticipated outcomes, and alignment with YIGH’s mission to improve the health of individuals and populations worldwide.
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Fall 2025 Spark Award Recipients Announced
The breast imaging fellowship in Ghana is more than an educational investment—it is a catalyst for national reform, regional transformation in breast imaging, and global awareness of breast cancer care in Africa.
Kiran Sheikh, MDAssistant Professor of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging
Educate, Empower, Diagnose: An Imaging Fellowship to Transform Breast Cancer Care in Ghana
Kiran Sheikh, MD – Assistant Professor of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, Yale School of Medicine
Ghana currently faces a critical gap in breast cancer care due to the absence of formally trained breast imaging radiologists and the lack of a nationalized screening mammography program. By supporting the certification of fellowship-trained breast radiologists at the major teaching hospitals in Accra and Kumasi—through lectures, in-country procedural workshops, and observerships at academic institutions—we can build a sustainable breast imaging fellowship program that will become a model for neighboring countries. This initiative will have the potential to catalyze regional change across West Africa, fostering a network of skilled radiologists who will elevate the standards of care and reduce mortality through early diagnosis of breast cancer.
Early-life respiratory infections shape respiratory health for decades. By studying molecular recovery in infancy, we hope to identify children who need intervention long before chronic disease becomes clinically apparent.
Brian Wahl, PhD, MPHAssistant Professor
PREQUEL Study
Brian Wahl, PhD – Assistant Professor (Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases), Yale School of Public Health
Severe lower respiratory infections in infancy can permanently alter lung development, yet clinicians lack tools to identify which children are most vulnerable to long-term respiratory harm (e.g., asthma, impaired lung function, etc). The PREQUEL study will test the feasibility of serial nasal transcriptomic profiling in infants recovering from severe lower respiratory infections in rural Bangladesh. By tracking gene expression from acute illness through recovery, the study aims to identify early transcriptional patterns associated with incomplete healing and future chronic disease risk. The pilot will generate foundational data and workflows for a larger cohort study linking early infection biology to later asthma and impaired lung function.
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