Student Spotlights
Cornell students received international recognition and a cash prize from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology during its One Million Dollar Entrepreneurship Competition 2025. The competition brought international teams to devise and present practical solutions for a sustainable future, pitching their innovations to an international panel of investors, clinicians and tech experts. “Representing the United States and Cornell University on such a stage was an incredible honor,” says Gauri Vanjari, M.P.H. Class of 2026, whose team, MaternaSense, took home the Gold-level (first runner-up) honor. Their award-winning innovation is a non-invasive sweat patch that utilizes a telehealth monitoring app…
“Researching the intersection of legal needs and healthcare disparities among immigrant farmworkers in Upstate New York deepened my understanding and support of interdisciplinary public health interventions.” -Anthony DiBenedetto, MPH ’25
During my internship at the Italian National Institute of Health, I contributed to a One Health study in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The primary objective of this study was to assess the integration of One Health approaches into the country’s preparedness, surveillance, and control strategies for identified pathogens. My role involved generating a country profile through an extensive literature review, identifying pathogens of One Health significance (e.g. zoonotic and vector-borne diseases), and preparing a prioritization exercise plan for stakeholders. I also identified the indictors necessary for…
To ready New York State communities for the rapidly evolving impacts of climate change, we created a Climate Disaster Health Policy Lab. This novel framework integrates analysis of community needs with product delivery in one center, enabling preparation and accelerating response. We partner with organizations having statewide impact (county- and state-level public health, emergency management, and Cooperative Extension staff), focusing on climate disasters with significant health impacts (e.g., extreme heat, cold, wildfire smoke). The project bridges the gap between researchers and practitioners, positioning Cornell Public Health as a leader in the climate and disaster space, while improving the lives of New Yorkers…
My Applied Practice Experience (APEx) deliverable was a policy case study on the integration of climate change, planetary health, and One Health into the medical curriculum at the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical University College (KCMUCo) in Tanzania. Prior to travel, I studied Swahili and worked with medical students from KCMUCo to perform a literature review. In Tanzania, we conducted stakeholder interviews before presenting our case study to the KCMUCo community. We were invited to present our work at the annual meeting of the Consortium of Universities for Global Health. My second…
Vaccines save lives, and myriad groups at Cornell have a hand in their research, development, and advocacy. For millions of children worldwide, life-saving immunizations are still out of reach. That’s why students from Cornell’s Master of Public Health (MPH) program and faculty from Weill Cornell Medicine’s Department of Pediatrics recently joined forces at the United Nations Foundation’s Shot@Life Advocate to Vaccinate Summit to champion global vaccine access. Shot@Life is an initiative that has been active for over ten years and brings together champions from around the country with the sole focus of advocating for vaccine access and funding for global public health…
The Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine, in collaboration with Entrepreneurship at Cornell, hosted the ninth annual Cornell Animal Health Hackathon earlier this month, bringing together 138 students ranging from eight different Cornell colleges, forming 27 teams to tackle pressing issues in animal health. “This year’s hackathon was an incredibly successful one,” says Jorge Colón ’92, D.V.M.’95, director of veterinary business education. “The creativity and dedication demonstrated by the competing teams was truly impressive…
Cornell Master of Public Health students Taylor Rijos and Anthony Un both vividly remember when Canadian wildfire smoke rolled into New York State in 2023. “That’s something my family had never experienced,” says Rijos. “Figuring out what to do when faced with a novel threat was eye-opening.” For Un, the smoke represented an even greater danger. “It was a stark reminder that the impacts of climate change are becoming more tangible,” he says. Wildfire smoke can be deadly; it contains high concentrations of particulate pollutants small enough to enter the bloodstream and affect internal organs, and is…
Lauren Singh was interested in tickborne diseases before she applied to Cornell Public Health. “I remember coming across Dr. Goodman’s lab and her work with ticks while researching different public health programs,” she says, “and it immediately caught my attention.” Singh joined the lab this summer and began working on an effort known as the New York State Tick Blitz. Supported by the Northeast Regional Center for Excellence in Vector-Borne Diseases (NEVBD) and USDA, the goal of the Tick Blitz is to identify and track the expansion of different tick species throughout the state due to climate change and urbanization…
Our Master’s Program publishes an annual magazine to provide students, alumni, prospective students, donors, advisors, and friends with a beautiful annual summary of our work. In this year’s magazine we focus on engagement. To have the greatest impacts, we must reach beyond classroom walls to work directly with communities and organizations in New York and around the world.
Veterinary diagnostic laboratories across the United States had a substantial positive effect on human health during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a study from researchers at the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine The paper, published June 25 in...
