NSLC Program—Medicine and Health Care

Global Public Health (1 or 2 credits)

Course Description: This course is connected to the NSLC program on Medicine and Health Care through utilizing an international perspective upon health issues. Throughout this course, students will receive an overview of important issues and actors in global public health, starting from a historical perspective and moving along to current and future issues that are likely to be of concern around the world. The course focuses on health issues of relevance in both the global North and South and emphasizes the social, cultural and economic underpinnings of health concerns and solutions. During the course, students will be introduced to major health problems that have affected and are currently affecting countries around the world. Case studies shall focus on smallpox, infectious diseases and biohazards as students will learn to recognize major actors, current and potential issues of concern, communicate problems and policies and design effective prevention and containment measures. Each session and post-course follow-up will include multimedia approaches to learning as students watch films, read popular and scholarly articles and have in-class and online debates and discussions about major health issues affecting the world today. Complementing the NSLC-led trips to medical facilities, simulation exercises about disease-containment and lectures, this course will inform students about public health and challenge them to design effective solutions for problems likely to arise in the 21st century world.

Course Outline PDF—Northwestern University

Course Outline PDF—University of California, Berkeley

Course Outline PDF—American University

Course Outline PDF—Harvard University

Course Outline PDF—Georgia Tech University

Professor for sessions at Northwestern University: Efe Sevin is a doctoral candidate at the School of International Service at American University and is a research fellow at the Research on Collaboratories and Technology Enhanced Learning Communities (COTELCO). His research interests include strategic communication, non-traditional diplomacy, global governance, and research methodologies. His interest in global governance and non-traditional diplomacy has broadened his research agenda to include climate change diplomacy, science diplomacy, and global health policies. He was recently employed as a visiting researcher at Stockholm University’s School of Business, where he studied the Swedish climate change and foreign aid policies as part of the country’s branding attempts. This summer will be his third year teaching with the NSLC. Efe received his BS. from the Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey. He completed his graduate level studies at Emerson College, Boston, and received his MA as a foreign Fulbright scholar.

Professor for sessions at the University of California, Berkeley: Leah Gates is a fourth-year doctoral student at American University’s School of International Service, where she specializes in military organizational behavior and gender issues. She has taught and assisted courses in human rights, world politics, and peace and conflict studies. Outside of academia, she is an active participant in health education programs, designing innovative strategies in collaboration with Washington, D.C., organizations like The Women’s Collective and V-Day D.C. She also devotes time to young women’s leadership development through mentorship and skills workshops. Leah was proud to present at the AIDS 2012: World Conference on HIV and AIDS, Global Village as a health educator discussing public/private partnerships in health promotion. She is active in national scholastic communities around military behavior, wartime human rights abuses, and women and political leadership, where she regularly presents her own research on these topics.

Professor for sessions at American University: Daniel Dye is a doctoral candidate at American University's School of International Service. Originally from Pittsburgh, Daniel received his BA from the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University before coming to AU, and has also studied at Sciences-Po in Paris, France. His research interests are focused on the use of the political discourse of “globalization” in the national politics of Western Europe, especially the United Kingdom. During his time in Washington, Daniel has also worked as rapporteur for an international leadership institute on global climate change, and interned with the Industry and Occupation Branch of the United States Census Bureau. This will be his third summer teaching AU-credit courses with NSLC. Previously, he has taught both Global Public Health and the Engineering and Environmental Sustainability.

Professor for sessions at Harvard University: Davina P.Durgana is a PhD student at American University in Washington, D.C., where she is specializing in human trafficking and transnational human security issues. She has been active in the anti-human trafficking field for the past six years with organizations such as the U.S. Department of Justice, the Polaris Project, MiraMed Institute, Walk Free’s Global Slavery Index, the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children, Amnesty International, the United Nations and the D.C. Office of the Attorney General among others. She received her French and American master’s degrees in Paris while studying human trafficking at the Sorbonne and the American University of Paris. She specializes in demand-based scholarship and policy advocacy and has paid particular attention to the role of technology in trafficking and the implementation of non-conventional civil society actors such as Big Brothers Big Sisters, National Court-Appointed Special Advocates and Volunteer Firefighters in the anti-trafficking field. For her global public health course at NSLC, she hopes to bring her experiences as a volunteer firefighter and first responder to bear in our classroom discussions of global health crises management and practice. 

Professor for sessions at Georgia Tech University: Patrick Litanga is a doctoral student at the School of International Service at American University and he is a research associate at the Research on Collaboratories and Technology Enhanced Learning Community (COTELCO). Patrick received his BA in psychology from the University of Kentucky, a Master’s in political science as well as a Master’s in international affairs from Ohio University, both with a focus on Africa. His research interests include post-conflict reconstruction, conflict resolution, child soldiering, and the political economy of land in post conflict settings. Patrick has worked and conducted research on the reintegration of ex-child soldiers and participated in land conflict negotiations and workshops on land conflicts in Northern Uganda. This summer is the first time that Patrick will be teaching the NSLC.