Student Spotlight: For Senior Lily Zerihun, Global Health Connects the Dots

Lily Zerihun knew even before her college career that she wanted to work in the world of global health. A senior from Greensboro, North Carolina, she’s majoring in biology and global health, minoring in cultural anthropology and completing the pre-medical school track. When asked why she chose this combination of subjects, she replied, “I saw global health as a way of bridging all the other disciplines I was interested in—like biology, anthropology and sociology. You don’t have to choose just one; you can bring them together and apply them to do something tangible for a community.” She’s interested in preventing chronic disease in the developed world as well issues focused on infectious disease in her parents’ home country of Ethiopia.

Duke Is the "Perfect Place" for Zerihun

What drew Zerihun to Duke was its closeness to home, its reputation as a world-class medical school, and its boundless prospects for international engagement through programs like Duke Engage, the Student Research Training (SRT) Program and study abroad. She was attracted to all the opportunities Duke offers to put learning into action. When Zerihun started at Duke, the global health co-major did not yet exist, so its creation her sophomore year left her with no doubt that Duke was the perfect place to pursue her passion.

After beginning her global health studies, Zerihun was struck by how passionate the faculty in the program were about their work and their students. She related, “Along the way I’ve seen that global health professors really care and do everything they can to support you. The professors and faculty treat you as an individual rather than just a number in a roster.” She saw this support very clearly last fall as she formed the Global Health Majors Union, an organization focusing on building community and spreading ideas within the undergraduate global health community.

Research Experience in Haiti Fuses Classwork with Fieldwork

Zerihun’s primary global health interests lie in prevention and treatment of cardiovascular illness. She works in a lab researching post-stroke neuroregeneration in order to develop more effective stroke treatment strategies. In addition, the summer after her sophomore year, she participated in the Student Research Training (SRT) program in Haiti, where she and her team performed a baseline assessment of cardiovascular health in a small community. They also researched the feasibility of implementing an HPV and cervical cancer prevention program. 

Talking about her SRT experience, Zerihun reflected, “It was such an eye opening experience for me to learn what it means to be in the field as opposed to just learning about the field in the classroom. What I really like about this program is that they emphasize language learning and engagement with the community. We took Haitian Creole lessons every week. It was a very formative experience for me and solidified my desire to go into global health as a career.”

Next Up for Zerihun ...

After she graduates this spring, Zerihun plans to spend a year gaining work experience in the public health field before continuing her education. She hopes that her year will include work both in the United States and Ethiopia. “I really want to go back to Ethiopia to gain fluency in my native language and get my foot in the door of the global health community there,” she said. “I have a passion for understanding my cultural heritage, but also for using my education and the opportunities I’ve gotten to give back to the community I came from.”