FALL TERM 2025
Professor Kerry Scott was in Nairobi for Global Digital Health Forum 2025, joining colleagues from the UCT School of Public Health & Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health to present the Evidence for Digital Transformation (EDiT) Consortium’s work over two sessions: “Measuring What Matters: AI Readiness, Digital Competency & Risk Mitigation for Health Workers” and “Improving Measurement of Gender Equity & Inclusion: Introducing the Digital Access and Use Index".
Professor Amrita Daftary was a co-author on the paper Person-Centred Care for People with Tuberculosis-Associated Comorbidities: A Multi-Country Qualitative Study published in BMJ Open. Findings from this study had been integrated into the WHO Framework for Collaborative Action on Tuberculosis and Comorbidities.
Professor Roojin Habibi from the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Law was a guest speaker in Professor Donya Razavi’s Policy and Program Evaluation in Global Health course. She spoke about the evolution of the International Health Regulations.
Mark Brender, National Director of Partners in Health Canada, was a guest speaker in Professor Monica Malta’s Agents of Change course. He spoke about pragmatic solidarity and the power of change, including the importance of accompaniment, trust, and community-led definitions of success.
York University Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellowships for Black and Indigenous Scholars has been announced. The School of Global Health welcomes inquiries from prospective postdocs interested in joining our community.
Professor Amrita Daftary was very busy during the 2025 The Union World Conference on Lung Health in Copenhagen, where she gave a plenary, three symposia, one poster presentation, and chaired one session.
Professor Mathieu Poirier and Post-Doctoral Fellow Dr. Chloe Clifford Astbury were co-authors on a paper entitled, Strengthening Governance for Antimicrobial Resistance: A One Health Perspective, published in Scientific and Technical Review, the scientific and technical journal of the World Organisation for Animal Health.
Gerrit John-Schuster, Chief Editor of BMC Global and Public Health, spoke with our PhD students about the publishing process and the journal’s interdisciplinary, author-centred approach to advancing global health research and researcher development.
Professor Mathieu Poirier was a co-author on a policy brief, Design to Delivery: Structuring IPEA’s Scientific Work to Meet Policy Needs, produced by the Global Strategy Lab and the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, on the Independent Panel for Evidence for Action against AMR’s founding decisions, their impact on future scientific outputs, and a proposed approach & timeline for structuring its program of work.
Professor A.M. Viens gave a guest lecture on public health ethics at Runnymede Collegiate Institute as part of the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health Outreach and Access Program, a group-mentoring program that supports Black, Indigenous, and other socially diverse youth from underrepresented communities to pursue careers and opportunities in public health and health systems.
Professor Godfred Boateng was a co-author on the Frontiers in Environmental Health editorial Environmental Degradation, Health, and Socioeconomic Impacts.
Professor A.M. Viens and Dr. Ahmad Firas Khalid (Senior Policy Analyst, Government of Canada; Past Sessional Assistant Professor of Global Health), along with SGH undergraduate students (now alumnae) Clarissa Eggen and Aaranee Sritharan, have authored Using a World Health Assembly Simulation to Explore Undergraduate Students’ Perceptions and Confidence in Analyzing Complex Global Health Challenges: A Mixed-Methods Evaluation in PLoS Global Public Health. This was the formal evaluation of our innovative World Health Assembly Simulation co-curricular activity, which has now been turned into a course: World Health Assembly Simulation (GH 4220).
Professor Godfred Boateng was a co-author on the paper Adaptation and Psychometric Evaluation of the Postpartum Partner Support Scale among Arab Women in the United Arab Emirates published in Midwifery.
Professor Mary Wiktorowicz was a co-author on a paper entitled Equity in the governance of antimicrobial resistance surveillance: Global experts’ perspectives in Social Science & Medicine.
Professor Godfred Boateng and his team represented the School of Global Health & the Global & Environmental Health Lab at the 2025 American Public Health Association Conference in Washington, D.C., presenting six papers on water, food, and energy insecurity, climate-sensitive diseases, and syndemics. Among the presenters was global health alumna Ailiya Rizwan, co-author on two papers exploring the health and nutritional burdens of energy insecurity in Afro-Colombian households.
Spend a few weeks abroad in the summer with health courses led by School of Global Health faculty. Travel with classmates, earn credits toward your degree, and explore health from a global perspective through an engaging learning experience in Social Determinants of Global Health: Health Equity & Community Storytelling (South Africa, May 9-23, 2026, Professor Monica Malta), Social Determinants of Global Health: African Health, Culture & Wellbeing (Ghana, July 11-25, 2026, Professor Godfred Boateng); and Social Determinants of Global Health: Exploring Health and Aging in Costa Rica (Costa Rica, August 5-14, 2026, Professor Brad Meisner).
Sarah Merghani, a third-year global health undergraduate student, has transformed personal concern into collective action by launching the Displacement & Health Relief Network (DHRN), a student-led initiative dedicated to advancing humanitarian relief for displaced peoples.
After witnessing the realities of mental health care in Ghana, Professor Benedict Weobong has dedicated his career to bridging the treatment gap through community-based innovation and global mental health research.
Students in our Promoting Global Health course, led by Professor Amrita Daftary, visited the former Mohawk Institute Residential School, gaining a sobering perspective on the legacy of residential schools and the resilience of Indigenous communities.
Great turnout for the School of Global Health at this year’s Canadian Conference on Global Health Conference. Our professors (Drs. Godfred Boateng, Steven Hoffman, Mathieu Poirier, and A.M. Viens) and student (Lathika Laguwaran) shared their research, connected with peers, and showcased the School’s growing impact in global health scholarship & practice.
Students in the Agents of Change in a Global World course, redesigned this year by Professor Monica Malta, transformed the York campus into a living classroom through creative pop-up campaigns addressing global health and social justice issues – demonstrating the School of Global Health’s commitment to experiential learning in action.
Professors Tarra Penney and A.M. Viens, Post-Doctoral Fellows Dr. Chloe Clifford Astbury and Dr. Kristen Lee, and PhD Student Joanne Ong, were co-authors on a study examining inconsistent translations of the term One Health and its implications for global health. The paper, entitled Globalizing One Health Requires Consistent and Culturally Appropriate Translation of the Term across Languages, was published in BioScience.
Mark Brender, National Director of Partners in Health Canada, was a guest speaker in Professor Monica Malta’s Agents of Change course. He spoke about pragmatic solidarity and the power of change, including the importance of accompaniment, trust, and community-led definitions of success.
Professors Benedict Weobong and Godfred Boateng will lead the $5.5M HEATSCAPE-Africa project, funded by The Wellcome Trust, to study how climate-related heat impacts sleep and mental health across Africa.
PhD student Orit Awoke has been named the recipient of the 2025 Harvey Skinner Agents of Change Award. Congrats Orit!
Professor A.M. Viens was a co-author on the paper Whose burden, whose benefit? Revisiting ethical trade-offs in the WHO guidelines on scaling up mass azithromycin administration published in PLOS Medicine.
The Faculty of Health is looking to appoint a Canada Excellence Research Chair in Population Health and Implementation Science – which can be based in or jointly appointed to the School of Global Health (deadline: October 31, 2025). This position will further strengthen the Faculty’s capacity around implementation science, with Professor Kerry Scott’s appointment last year as an Assistant Professor in Implementation Science and Knowledge Mobilization.
Professors Tarra Penney and Mary Wiktorowicz, along with Post-Doctoral Fellow Chloe Clifford Astbury and SGH student Arabi Raja, were co-authors on Interconnections between the food system and antimicrobial resistance: A systems-informed umbrella review from a One Health perspective, published in One Health.
Professor Godfred Boateng, along with SGH students Ann Kwarteng, Salwa Regragui, and Tricia Tetteh, co-authored a paper “I am a Black man in Canada! I wish I could say differently!”: exploring the impact of direct and indirect encounters with the police and welfare system on anxiety and depression among Black youth in Toronto, Canada in Frontiers in Public Health.
Congratulations to our PhD students – Michael Davies-Venn, Naeema Hassan, Yvette Nkurunziza, Rupsha Mutsuddi, Babatunde Odugbemi, Joanne Ong, and Kathirvel Soundappan – who have been awarded Dahdaleh Global Health Graduate Scholarships for 2025-26!
Professor Benedict Weobong was a panelist at the Fostering Black Scholars Scholarship Success Workshop, where he shared his experiences and insights on navigating scholarships and grants as a Black scholar in academia.
Bhutila Karpoche, former Member of Provincial Parliament, Deputy Speaker for the 43rd Parliament of the Ontario Legislature, and the first person of Tibetan descent ever elected to public office in North America, spoke to Professor A.M. Viens’ Global Health Ethics course about her personal & professional journey from studying public health to entering politics and about the political determinants of health.
The second edition of the Global Health Alumni Newsletter has been published!