GKII Travel Grant Enables Students' Research Journeys to India

Established through the generous support of Girish Rishi, an alumnus of the School of Advanced International Studies and an accomplished tech executive, now CEO of the industrial software company Cognite, and his wife Himangi Rishi, this prestigious award provides travel funding for JHU students conducting field-based research in India. GKII has partnered with the Center for Global Health (CGH) Global Health Established Field Placements (GHEFP) program to support the placement of JHU students traveling to India for research, field practicums, internships, or capstone projects. By immersing themselves in diverse healthcare landscapes, awardees contribute to meaningful projects while gaining firsthand experience in implementing solutions that address pressing health challenges.

Since its inception in 2023, the award has enabled 14 students to tackle issues ranging from infectious diseases to health policy reform. In this article, we take a closer look at the experiences of four recent recipients of the travel award — Hrishikesh, Autumn, Divya, and Jaelynn. Their journeys provide insight into the challenges and opportunities of fieldwork, the communities they engaged with, and the lessons they carried forward.

Are you a Johns Hopkins student interested in traveling to India for a research and field work? Apply for the GKII Girish and Himangi Rishi Student Travel Award to fund your research and make a meaningful impact. Applications are open until February 6, 2025. Apply here!

Evaluating Peer Mentorship Programs for Vulnerable Youth

For adolescents and youth living with HIV, maintaining physical health, mental resilience, and social inclusion can be a challenge. Limited access to structured fitness programs, gendered barriers to participation, and stigma often prevent them from leading active, healthy lives.

As a recipient of the Girish and Himangi Rishi Student Travel Exchange Award, Hrishikesh Sathyamoorthy traveled to Tamil Nadu to work with the Positive Running Program, an initiative designed to enhance the physical and mental well-being of adolescents and youth living with HIV. Under the mentorship of Dr. Anita Shet, he contributed to program expansion at Snehagram, a leading rehabilitation center in Krishnagiri, Tamil Nadu. Working directly with these resilient adolescents, he gained a deeper understanding of their aspirations, challenges, and the transformative power of structured fitness in shaping their confidence and well-being.

The Positive Running Program, which operates in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, empowers HIV-infected adolescents by providing structured fitness training, nutrition support, and opportunities to participate in regional and national running events. Hrishikesh’s focus was on evaluating the program’s impact on fitness, well-being, and social integration, with special attention to the gendered aspects of sports participation among girls and women.

As part of his role, he was actively involved in launching the second phase of the program, helping expand its reach beyond Karnataka into Tamil Nadu. He visited multiple care homes, facilitated partnerships, and assisted in recruiting 30 new participants. His research contributions included baseline data collection, using diverse tools to assess participants’ health, fitness, and psychological resilience, followed by a quantitative analysis of survey results from the program’s first phase.

Hrishikesh also took on the role of an educator, volunteering as a high school teacher for students transitioning to higher education. He taught Environmental Science, English, Psychology, Mathematics, and Computer Science while incorporating soft skills training, leadership development, and gender-sensitive education. His teaching approach emphasized interactive learning, using trivia, film screenings, and mentorship sessions to encourage student engagement and critical thinking. The experience reinforced the importance of holistic health approaches in public health—bridging physical fitness, education, mental health, and community engagement to create sustainable impact.

Living and working at Snehagram showed me the power of resilience and community. The students’ unwavering determination and optimism have inspired me to pursue a career that integrates public health research with hands-on community engagement. I leave this experience with lifelong friendships and a renewed commitment to empowering vulnerable communities.

With a background in medical training, he also provided first aid and monitored students’ health, ensuring their well-being during the physically demanding training regimen. He played an instrumental role in organizing Camp Rainbow Bengaluru, a family support camp that provided training in HIV/AIDS management, leadership, and community building for 20 families. He also contributed to planning Circle of Life 2024, a high-profile fundraising concert in Bengaluru that brought together renowned musicians to support the students of Snehagram.

Fostering Resilience and Health Among Youth Living with HIV

Autumn Tangney, a second-year MSPH student at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, spent her summer at Snehagram, Karnataka, India. Under the mentorship of Dr. Anita Shet, she worked on the I’mPossible Fellowship, a peer-support program empowering orphaned and vulnerable adolescents living with HIV/AIDS to support their peers in accessing healthcare, education, and essential services.

Her role focused on evaluating the program’s impact, particularly how fellows and their peers accessed HIV care, mental health support, and educational resources. She played an active role in the research project, demonstrating advanced skills by developing and improving the mapping procedure, conducting focus group discussions, and leading key informant interviews. “I learned about the importance of organizational partnerships in creating successful community-based initiatives. This experience increased my cultural competency because I worked directly to create connections with local community members,” she shares.

During her stay at Snehagram, Autumn immersed herself in the students’ daily routine—starting her mornings with 5:30 AM runs, teaching psychology and English, and joining in games and evening reflections.

It was a privilege to immerse myself in the Indian culture and to spend time working with and learning from the Snehagram students. As much as I hope to have taught the children in the classroom, I will leave India with a more developed sense of who I am and what my passions are after living alongside such a resilient, respectful, and hard-working group.

Tuberculosis Screening and Early Detection

In the quiet monasteries of rural Kathmandu, tuberculosis (TB) often spreads unnoticed. Crowded living conditions, limited awareness, and a lack of preventive care leave many children and families vulnerable. Schools and community spaces offer opportunities for intervention, but resources are scarce.

As a recipient of GHRSTA, Divya Rao arrived in Nepal to work with Himalayan Trust Nepal in Kathmandu. She became an integral part of the Zero TB in Kids project, a global health initiative led by Johns Hopkins and collaborators, focusing on screening, prevention, and treatment of latent TB in congregate settings—monasteries, boarding schools, and refugee settlements across South Asia.

Traveling to rural monasteries and local schools, Divya conducted TB screenings for children, delivered medications, and managed project data. She analyzed gaps in data collection and uncovered patterns of inequality that shaped access to TB care.

One experience, in particular, stood out. After a TB screening session in the Dakshinkali municipality, Divya and her team faced logistical challenges when their transportation fell through. Given the urgency of reaching the next location, they decided to hike through the woods as a shortcut. “With bags of screening equipment and boxes of medication in our hands, we hiked across several hills, through a couple of temples, and into another village before reaching the monastery,” she recalls. “In the moment, I was profusely sweating and laughing at the situation, but on the drive back, I realized the importance of this decision. In the context of low engagement and a lack of awareness of the TB crisis, it is the responsibility of health practitioners to approach the community. Policy and upstream change matter, but interpersonal and community-level intervention is more attainable. Bringing health to the people was revealed to me as the theme of this project, along with the education that would, in turn, improve health.”

Beyond fieldwork, Divya played a key role in strengthening data collection. Drawing from her observations and interactions with healthcare professionals, she identified disparities—ethnic, occupational, age-related—that screenings and monitoring efforts could better capture. Based on discussions with the clinical team, she proposed recommendations to improve data accuracy and transparency. “The report was informed by my own observations of screenings and interactions with the clinical staff and community,” she explains. “While I also contributed to other tasks, I felt the impact of this report to be the most important and tangible.”

Her experience also exposed her to the deep-rooted challenges of TB prevention in South Asia. Conversations with her mentor, Dr. Nyima, and local communities revealed a widespread lack of awareness about latent TB, alongside cultural and systemic barriers to treatment. Many families didn’t fully understand the gravity of a TB diagnosis, and institutions often prioritized reactive care over prevention. “Community-level behavioral responses to public health interventions contrasted with the collective approach across industries that I had studied in my classroom experience,” she reflects. “Seeing the situation firsthand in Nepal defy these expectations changed my perspective on global health research. It made me think critically about the unique complexities of Nepal’s ethnic and religious diversity that shape this crisis. I am both frustrated and compelled to pursue solutions—ones that require multidisciplinary approaches and cross-collaboration between health and social science experts.”

Divya’s contributions have enhanced her host organization Himalayan Trust Nepal’s ability to measure the true burden of TB within Kathmandu’s communities. Her recommendations have the potential to improve TB prevention strategies and better address mental health co-morbidities, thereby shaping how TB prevention is approached in similar contexts globally.

This experience has fortified my interest in pursuing a global health focused career. Getting an understanding of the challenges and joys of working in an international setting, with experts in different industries has helped me envision my dreams of working at the WHO or UNHCR. Understanding patterns of violence, climate change and migration, visualizing the impacts of these large, intertwined crises on the health and safety of communities across the globe and continuing to do fieldwork alongside the communities I am studying is the future that this opportunity has helped me believe I can pursue.

Strengthening Health Systems Through Policy Research

Working with Johns Hopkins collaborators in Lucknow and Gorakhpur, JaeLynn Taylor, pursuing MSPH in Health Educationa and Health Communications, helped drive the Supporting Equitable Wellness through Advanced Research and Training in Health (SEWARTH) initiative. She contributed to building a Health and Demographic Surveillance System in Uttar Pradesh—a comprehensive public health database designed to guide interventions and policies for local communities.

JaeLynn provided insights for developing training materials for data enumerators, the frontline workers collecting crucial health data. While piloting the data collection tool with AIIMS faculty, she made a profound obersvation. “Even the experts who designed the forms found certain questions confusing,” she recalls. “That was a turning point for me—I realized that clarity in training and communication is just as important as the research itself.”

Beyond refining training protocols, JaeLynn navigated the complexities of public health research in India. She quickly recognized how hierarchy and bureaucracy influence healthcare implementation. At the same time, she saw the power of relationships in driving change. By building trust and engaging local experts, she learned how to create a lasting impact.

Throughout her time in India, JaeLynn gained confidence as a public health professional. Initially, she felt intimidated in rooms with senior faculty. But over time, she reminded herself that her perspective mattered. Advocating for her ideas—respectfully but firmly—became a defining growth moment.

The most unexpected aspect of my experience is the politics/hierarchy of working, government, and public health in India. This impacted my perspective because it showed me the power of forming relationships with a diverse set of people that are looking to do different things in public health. Having this diverse range and forming meaningful relationships with them can help bring people together to have great conversations (and hopefully future actions) to move the needle on important health topics and indicators.

The experience deepened her commitment to health equity and community-centered research, shaping her aspirations to pursue a PhD in public health. “This experience gave me an appreciation for the intersection of research and policy,” she reflects. “Understanding how policies impact healthcare delivery on the ground was invaluable, and I hope to use this knowledge to advocate for more effective health policies worldwide.”

As these exceptional students return to Johns Hopkins, they carry forward valuable insights and experiences that will shape their future careers. Whether it’s strengthening public health data systems, supporting youth living with HIV, or advancing maternal health initiatives, their work embodies the spirit of global health innovation and collaboration.