Lessons Learned from Past Prize Winners

Meet the biotech startups brewing milk in bioreactors to improve on baby formula. YSPH Professor Rafael Perez-Escamilla has concerns.

Blair Palmer (MPH ‘01) is a purpose-driven and visionary social impact leader with senior management experience in the public and private sectors. With a deep passion for innovation, strategic partnerships, and epidemiology, Blair holds experience working at UNICEF, the United Nations, and the World Health Organization. She is passionate about applying entrepreneurial solutions to the world’s most pressing issues. Throughout the conversation, she shared her career journey and provided practical advice for students looking to bring innovative solutions into the realm of public health.

Kailey Seiler (‘MPH 24) is the User-centered Design Lead at the Laboratory of Intelligent Global Health Technologies (LiGHT), a research group established in 2023 that develops technologies to support high-stakes decision-making in humanitarian response and low-resource settings. Before graduating this past May, Kailey was InnovateHealth Yale’s student fellow, supporting Yale’s innovation initiatives and partnerships. In this conversation, she opened up about her academic and career journey, providing practical advice for students looking to land their first job in global health innovation.

Dr. Leslie Asanga, a pharmacist and visionary entrepreneur, has dedicated over a decade to advancing healthcare through entrepreneurship. In response to healthcare challenges exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Asanga founded Pills2Me, an on-demand prescription delivery service to improve medication accessibility. He also co-founded UrPharm, which enhances access to medications in Sub-Saharan Africa, addressing critical health disparities.

After seven and half years of dedicated service to the Yale School of Public Health, Dr. Sten H. Vermund, MD, PhD, will be joining the University of South Florida as dean of the USF Health College of Public Health effective January 1, 2025. The relocation also allows Dr. Vermund to be on-site as the newly elected president of the Global Virus Network, which recently moved its international headquarters to USF.

In recognition of National Breastfeeding Month and World Breastfeeding Week, which begins today, Yale School of Public Health Professor Rafael Pérez-Escamilla discusses five key, science-based facts that formula milk companies may not want people to know.

A new report from the Sports Equity Lab at Yale suggests that a commitment to athlete-centered sports governance among major sports organizations is essential to protecting athletes from the harmful interactions that can arise in sports settings.

Kaakpema “KP” Yelpaala, MPH ’06, lecturer and senior fellow in public health (health policy) at the Yale School of Public Health, traveled to New Orleans to advocate for diverse clinical trials at the Global Black Economic Forum.

The Sports Equity™ Lab (SEL), with the Global Health Justice Partnership of Yale Law School and the Yale School of Public Health, the Orville H. Schell, Jr. Center for International Human Rights at Yale Law School, and Sports Law Solutions, published a report on June 20 analyzing the issue of interpersonal violence in international sport.