Northwestern Team Places Third at International Global Health Case Competition

April 2025

On March 29, a team representing Northwestern University placed third in the Morningside International Global Health Case Competition.

The Northwestern team attending the 2025 Morningside International Global Health Case Competition at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.

Team members included multidisciplinary trainees from across Northwestern: 

• Shail Belani (BS candidate, McCormick School of Engineering) 
• Rebecca Marcus (MD/MPH candidate, Feinberg School of Medicine) 
• Nkatha Mwenda (PhD candidate, Feinberg School of Medicine) 
• Chisom Obieqzu-Umeh (Postdoctoral Fellow, Feinberg School of Medicine) 
• Erika Ruiz-Yamamoto (BS candidate, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences) 
• Yufan “Baby” Wang (MA candidate, Feinberg School of Medicine) 

The team first presented their work at the December 2024 intramural Global Health Case Competition at the Robert J. Havey, MD Institute for Global Health annual Global Health Day, earning the opportunity to represent Northwestern at the 2025 Morningside International Global Health Case Competition, held at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. 

Amelia Van Pelt, PhD, MPH, assistant professor in the Department of Medical Social Sciences and associate director of Research at the Ryan Family Center for Global Primary Care at the Havey Institute for Global Health, served as the team’s faculty mentor. Havey Institute for Global Health and the Global Health Studies program sponsored the team’s participation. 

“Case competitions are an invaluable applied learning opportunity,” Van Pelt shared. 

“Through multidisciplinary collaboration, trainees learned how complex global health problems require multifaceted solutions,” Van Pelt continued. 

"I am truly honored to have connected with like-minded peers from across the States and beyond who share a collective vision of making healthcare more equitable and accessible. It gives me hope and power to keep pushing forward," Wang said.

Twenty-eight teams from four continents competed to pitch their solution to eliminate cervical cancer in Kenya. Specifically, teams had one week to develop an innovative, feasible, evidence-based, and sustainable five-year program for $40 million. Although they represented a fictional non-governmental organization (NGO), teams presented their programs to panels of expert judges who work in this area. 

Northwestern developed the program, “Afya Yetu (Our Health),” that involved a community-based, adaptable, single-session cervical cancer intervention for women aged 25-49 years in Siaya and Narok counties. Given multi-level barriers to HPV screening and treatment, a leading cause of cervical cancer, the program consisted of three steps: 1) screening via self-swab collection at homes or mobile clinics, 2) single-session triage and treat via automated visual inspection (i.e., AI) and thermal ablation, and 3) follow-up via electronic medical records.

The Northwestern team features students from Feinberg School of Medicine, McCormick School of Engineering, and Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. 

"We were able to bring all our different perspectives together to present a solution to the case and also had so much fun doing it," Mwenda continued.

"Through my participation in the Global Health Case Competition, I gained invaluable insight and experience into the dynamic field of global health. I had the opportunity to connect with incredible individuals from diverse disciplines at Northwestern, who shared valuable lessons and offered fresh perspectives," Ruiz-Yamamoto said.

The program incorporated a robust community engagement and education campaign to raise awareness and facilitation by community health promoters and peer navigators to build trust and offer support. Over five years, this program aimed to increase rates of screening to 50 percent of eligible women and rates of treatment to 75 percent as a pilot for future scale-up to meet the World Health Organization 90-70-90 cervical cancer elimination targets. 

As finalists, the team was tasked with incorporating an unexpected case twist that posed the barrier of misinformation, and subsequent mistrust, related to videos circulating on social media that showed influencers declaring contamination of speculums used in screening and testing.

Along with placing third, the team had the opportunity to network with trainees from around the world, all working on the shared goal of addressing the case topic.  

"Not only was it educational, but it was also inspiring to see so many teams from around the world working on such an important global health matter," Mwenda said.

The event's impact extends beyond the competition. Individuals working in Kenya attended the competition virtually and requested the teams’ proposals to integrate the ideas into reality.

"I remain committed to transforming this experience into a foundation for my future career," Ruiz-Yamamoto concluded.

Amelia Van Pelt, PhD, MPH is a member of Robert J. Havey, MD Institute for Global Health and Institute for Public Health and Medicine (IPHAM).

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