New Master of Science in Global Health students Denali Dahl (left) and Daphne Wang chat with neurosurgery and global health professor Michael Haglund at an MSc-GH welcome dinner last week
Published August 25, 2015 under Education News
As returning global health students and scholars wrap up their fieldwork in nearly 30 different countries, DGHI is welcoming a new class of 33 master’s degree students, three new doctoral scholars and dozens of new undergraduate majors and minors.
New MSc-GH Students Hail from Six Different Countries
DGHI’s new class of 33 incoming Master of Science in Global Health (MSc-GH) students arrived on Duke’s campus last week, joining a cohort of 35 continuing students.
Six different countries are represented among the new students, with 25 from the United States and the rest from Canada, South Korea, Uganda, China (five students) and Kenya. Collectively, the members of the incoming class speak 21 different languages.
Four of the new students are participants in the Global Health Residency/Fellowship Pathway program led by the Duke Hubert-Yeargan Center for Global Health.
One student, Taylor Haynes, graduated from Duke in May 2014 with a psychology major and global health certificate. “Choosing to return to Duke for my master's degree was easy because I know I’ll get an unparalleled education here,” she said. “I was especially drawn to the MSc-GH because of the breadth of DGHI faculty interests and research projects, as well as the fully-funded fieldwork experience DGHI offers.”
In addition to the new MSc-GH students on Duke’s Durham, North Carolina campus, Duke Kunshan University (DKU) is welcoming eight new MSc-GH students this year. These students, who hail from China, Australia, Kenya and Mongolia, are joining five returning students. This is the second year DKU is offering the MSc-GH degree.
DGHI’s Doctoral-Level Programs Continue to Grow
In 2015-16, DGHI will host eight doctoral scholars, three of whom are new to the program. The Global Health Doctoral Scholars program provides an opportunity for Duke doctoral candidates from multiple disciplines to participate in innovative research on a topic that integrates their primary discipline with global health. Each scholar is mentored by a DGHI faculty member.
This year’s doctoral scholars hail from six different fields:
- Clinical psychology (two scholars)
- Environmental health
- Environmental economics
- Civil and environmental engineering (two scholars)
- Cultural anthropology
- Economics
DGHI’s Global Health Doctoral Certificate program is also seeing growth, particularly from nursing and immunology PhD students. The certificate—available to all current Duke PhD students with an interest in global health—requires completion of three courses, a doctoral seminar and a field research experience.
Fifteen Percent of Duke’s Incoming Freshmen Want to Study Global Health
In the last year, DGHI’s undergraduate global health programs experienced explosive growth, with a current total of 140 majors and 103 minors. Notably, 2014-15 was the first year that the number of majors exceeded the number of minors.
From the incoming class of 2019, nearly 270 students specified global health as an area of academic interest, and the majority of those students ranked global health as one of their top three areas of interest.
“We’re delighted to welcome new global health students and scholars into the DGHI community, and we’re eager to see them forge their own global health paths in collaboration with our faculty.” said Mary Story, associate director for academic programs. “We’re also looking forward to meeting and working with a new cadre of students who are interested in pursuing this exciting field at Duke.”
