CGHSR Awards Global Engagement Grants to 11 UMN Faculty and Staff Members

Global Engagement Grants

The Center for Global Health and Social Responsibility has awarded 11 Global Engagement Grants, investing in University of Minnesota faculty- and staff-led projects that integrate research, education, and capacity building to address global health challenges. 

Awardees’ projects spanned 11 countries and numerous disciplines, including maternal health, veterinary medicine, dentistry and cancer prevention. Together, the funded projects highlight innovative models for learning and training, combining workforce development, curriculum design, and applied research with community-engaged and technology-enabled approaches.

The Global Engagement Grant program offers grants of up to $15,000 to catalyze creative, interdisciplinary approaches to global engagement grounded in sustainability and health equity. 

Projects align with CGHSR’s tenets of social responsibility and are evaluated for intellectual merit and interdisciplinary collaboration, ensuring that funded work advances both academic excellence and real-world impact. 

This year’s UMN awardees are: 

  • Mustafa al’Absi smiling for a portrait

    Mustafa al’Absi, PhD, LP | UMN Medical School, Duluth 

    • Project Country: Ethiopia 
    • Project Title: "Building Capacity for Maternal-Adolescent Mental Health Research in Ethiopia"

 

  • Zobeida Bonilla portrait

    Zobeida Bonilla, PhD, MPH  | UMN School of Public Health

    • Project Country: Guatemala 
    • Project Title: "Defining Obstetric Violence: A Pilot Study Using Zoom Workshops and Qualitative Interviews"
  • Boyen Huang portrait

    Boyen Huang, DDS, MHA, PhD | UMN School of Dentistry 

    • Project Country: Minnesota, Taiwan and Thailand
    • Project Title: "Development and Evaluation of an AI-Empowered Teledentistry Diagnostic Tool in Minnesota, Taiwan, and Thailand"
  • Esther Johnston portrait

    Esther Johnston MD, MPH, FAAFP | UMN Medical School

    • Project Country: South Africa 
    • Project Title: "Building Capacity for Research Impact Through Global Health and Community Partnerships"
  • Susi Keefe circle

    Susi Keefe, PhD | UMN Center for Community Engaged Learning

    • Project Country: Thailand 
    • Project Title: "Transforming Research into Action through Culturally-Grounded Health Education Engaging Hmong Oral Storytelling in Northern Thailand"
  • Vanessa Moll portrait

    Vanessa Moll, MD, PhD, FCCM, FASA, DESA | UMN Medical School

    • Project Country: Botswana
    • Project Title: "Airway Workshop Initiative: Simulation-Based Drills, Algorithm-Based Decision Training, and a Refresher Curriculum Adapted for the Local Resource Context"
  • Maria Sol Perez portrait

    Maria Sol Perez, DVM, PhD | UMN College of Veterinary Medicine

    • Project Country: Uzbekistan
    • Project Title: "Strengthening Veterinary Workforce Resilience in the Republic of Uzbekistan: Needs Assessment for Establishing Re-Training Centers"
  • Kendra Phelps portrait

    Kendra Phelps, MSc, PhD | UMN College of Veterinary Medicine

    • Project Country: Malaysia 
    • Project Title: "Curriculum Development for a One Health-Focused Study Abroad Course in Malaysia"
  • Irina Stepanov portrait

    Irina Stepanov, PhD | UMN School of Public Health

    • Project Country: India  
    • Project Title: "Workshop: Biomarker Applications to Inform Cancer Prevention"

Bridge Funding for Sustaining Global Health Partnerships Call 

In response to federal policy changes that disrupted global health research and threatened the continuity of ongoing projects, CGHSR launched a targeted Bridge Funding mechanism to help sustain research momentum and protect long-standing global partnerships. 

This funding was designed to support investigators navigating sudden uncertainty while preserving critical collaborations, training investments, and progress toward long-term research goals.

Through this mechanism, CGHSR awarded bridge funding to two researchers whose NIH-funded work faced instability but remained central to advancing global health knowledge and partnership-based research. The funding enabled teams to adapt, strengthen collaborations, and continue laying the groundwork for future externally funded research.

"The Bridge Funding has allowed our team to build a new collaboration with researchers in Northern Vietnam,” said awardee Kumi Smith, PhD, MPIA. 

“By working together on our R01, visiting with the team in Hanoi, and learning about their own interests, we will have rich opportunities to generate new ideas and grow our research collaboration."

The bridge funding call awardees are: 

  • David Boulware portrait

    David Boulware, MD, MPH | UMN Medical School

    • Project Country: Uganda
    • Project Title: "Seamless Phase 2 Trial of Novel Antimicrobial Combination Therapy to Treat TB Meningitis"
  • Kumi Smith portrait

    M. Kumi Smith, PhD, MPIA | UMN School of Public Health

    • Project Country: China and Vietnam 
    • Project Title: "Combating HIV Stigma in Healthcare Settings: A Standardized Patient Approach"

Thank you to everyone who applied for a Global Engagement Grant this year. We received numerous strong proposals that accentuated CGHSR’s tenets of social responsibility and demonstrated the importance of global health at UMN.