Dawn Nekorchuk, a Ph.D. student in medical geography, competed and was part of the winning team in the 2015 UF Global Health Case Competition which ran from January 28th to the 31st.
The Global Health Case Competition poses a complex global health issue to interdisciplinary teams, encouraging innovative solutions arising from collaboration across multiple fields. The competition helps foster communication and relationships across colleges and departments, and students get experience in working with interdisciplinary teams. This was the second annual competition at UF; it is a student-run event inspired by the GHCC program at Emory University. The case challenge this year was the shortage of healthcare workers in Sierra Leone.
The teams were assigned and balanced to bring together a wide variety of departments and colleges. Dawn’s interdisciplinary team, which named itself HealthForce, included:
Isaac Camargo, a 3rd year undergraduate in Mathematics (CLAS),
Rikki Schwarz, a 3rd year DVM student (College of Veterinary Medicine) and dual degree MPH in Public Health Practice,
Jess Harris, a senior undergraduate in Biology (CLAS) and pre health/medical school applicant,
Uday Manda, a 1st year Master’s student in Industrial and Systems Engineering (College of Engineering), and
Bryan Redden, a 3rd year undergraduate in natural resource conservation (College of Agricultural and Life Sciences).
HealthForce won the competition, and their members are splitting the $750 prize.