Allison Mobley never would have guessed that she would spend a full year researching addiction medicine in a Kuala Lumpur prison.
At the time, Mobley was a third-year medical student at the University of Chicago, working to gain international research experience before applying for residency programs. But she had never been to Southeast Asia before, and the idea of dedicating so much time to uninterrupted fieldwork in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) seemed exciting.
Joining the Global Health Equity Scholars (GHES) Consortium, a worldwide, multi-university research training fellowship program sponsored by the Fogarty International Center, was a big jump, she said.
Despite her initial reservations, Mobley joined a clinical trial led by the Yale School of Public Health and the University of Malaya, assessing treatments for HIV and opiate use disorder among incarcerated men. She borrowed from her medical school training and experience in global health research to conduct fieldwork in Malaysian prisons, where she interviewed custodial staff about barriers to treatments. In the process, she benefited from mentorship opportunities that helped to supercharge her early career.
Looking back at her time as a Fogarty Fellow, Mobley said her fieldwork in Malaysia was “formative and transformative.”
“I fell in love with research,” she said. “It was definitely the most robust and longitudinal research experience I had had up to that point. I was so thankful to have Fogarty funding. All of the support and responsibility that comes with the fellowship helped to nurture my professional development.”
Mobley is one of nearly 200 Fellows who have participated in the Global Health Equity Scholars Consortium, a groundbreaking collaboration between Yale University, the University of California at Berkeley, Stanford University, the University of Arizona, and 30 LMIC institutions that formed in 2012. Every year, the consortium provides nearly two dozen U.S. and foreign postdoctoral and doctoral fellows with research training opportunities in 24 LMICs.
The fellowships are a powerful way for students to build a foundation for a productive career in global health research. As part of their fellowships, students receive a sizeable stipend, along with money for insurance, travel, and research. The students’ work supports ongoing research studies. It’s not unusual for students to contribute to as many as three peer-reviewed research publications as a result of the fellowship experience. Program leaders say student participants have produced 382 scientific publications across a broad range of global health disciplines since the program began.
“My advice to potential applicants: Get excited, have fun, and follow your passion,” Mobley said. “You have mentors motivating you all along the way.”
Training people to be in the vanguard
The Global Health Equity Scholars Consortium was formed 12 years ago as part of the Global Health Program for Fellows and Scholars/Launching Future Leaders in Global Health Research Training Program, sponsored by the Fogarty International Center and several collaborating institutes and centers at the National Institutes of Health. It emerged from a collective push among the four collegiate institutions to empower and prepare new communities of researchers, educators, and professionals to address existing and future global health challenges.
Historically, its focus has been on the health challenges that have arisen while the world’s informal settlements — often called slums — grow. Recently, however, the program has sprouted a variety of research focuses, strengthened by powerful collaborations with researchers in 24 countries. These now include HIV/AIDS, infectious diseases, non-communicable diseases, trauma, mental health, and environmental health, among other areas.
Dr. Albert Ko, Raj and Indra Nooyi Professor of Public Health and professor of epidemiology (microbial diseases), who serves as the program’s director, said the program is a “long-term investment” in the next generation of health researchers, foreign and domestic. Residents in member countries and the United States collect the dividends.
“We’re training people to be in the vanguard,” Ko explained. “By mentoring people in the GHES program, we are giving value across the board. Everyone benefits.”
He pointed to two-time fellow Courtney Choy, MPH ’16, and her work in Samoa as an example of the power of the GHES program.
When Choy first applied to the program in 2018, she was looking for research funding for her dissertation work in Samoa. After winning a fellowship, she leveraged her epidemiological training and her lived experience from her childhood in Hawaii to investigate the underlying behavioral, social, and environmental determinants of Samoa’s childhood obesity crisis.
Choy began a longitudinal study that monitors child health and development in Samoa and started collecting data right away. That opportunity “was really essential to making everything happen for my dissertation,” she said. The study benefited, too: Choy helped to collect vital information about the youth cohort which led to an illuminating analysis of modifiable lifestyle risks and protective factors in Samoa.
Still, upon leaving Samoa, she felt like there were loose ends in her research which deserved a further look. The children she studied in the cohort were growing up, and that brought new questions about how school environments might impact their cardiometabolic health.
“These children have amazing dreams of being teachers, lawyers, carpenters, physicians, and you have people who want to be there for their family,” she said. “They’re already starting to think of these things and the role that they want to play in their villages.”
So, she traveled back to Samoa as a postdoctoral Fogarty Fellow. The preliminary data she collected in that fellowship enabled her to earn a K99/R00 grant, an NIH career award that allows her to transition to an independent researcher and faculty in global health.
All told, Choy said, a wide majority of her more than 20 publications emerged from her time in the GHES program.
“It was thanks to the Samoan people, that experience, the protected time, the mentorship, and the placement that I developed stronger partnerships across Samoa,” she said. “GHES provided a very strong infrastructure to allow me to become a part of the community while also inspiring my curiosity for public health.”
How to Apply
Applications for the 2024-25 fellowship year remain open until November 1.
Only predoctoral applicants in doctoral or professional programs and postdoctoral applicants who graduated less than five years ago are eligible for the GHES program. All fellows are required to pursue their research training full-time.
To apply, applicants must receive a letter of support from a GHES-affiliated mentor from both the U.S. and the foreign country of interest. Applicants do not need to be affiliated with the consortium of universities, but a professional relationship with a U.S. mentor at one of the institutions is necessary.
Researchers with families are welcome, said Dr. Michele Barry, associate dean of global health at Stanford University and the university’s GHES program director.
“Many of us in the field, myself included, traveled with young children. That became incredibly enriching in their lives,” she said. “My two cents of advice is, “Don’t be afraid to bring your children.” Absolutely, it’s an enriching experience, and it’s often very easy to get help — childcare in particular — overseas.”
Read more about the research requirements, eligibility details, and application components.