College of Medicine students launch inaugural global health case competition

HERSHEY, Pa. — Penn State College of Medicine students brought global health learning to a new level this fall by organizing the college’s inaugural global health case competition.

The event on Oct. 17 was led by the student-run Global Health Interest Group with mentorship from Julie Lentes, assistant professor of public health sciences and longtime faculty adviser for Penn State’s national case competition teams.

Modeled after the annual Emory Morningside Global Health Case Competition — an event in which Penn State competes each spring — the inaugural campus-wide contest was designed to give more College of Medicine students the chance to practice real-world, public health problem-solving. Many major universities host their own internal competitions prior to Emory’s international event, and faculty said they were proud to see Penn State’s students establish one of their own.

Throughout the past year, the Global Health Interest Group executive board — Eva Eleftheriadis, Anna Verevkina, Johanna Linna, Sundip Singh and Swetha Ampabathina — worked closely with Lentes to bring the event to life. The students selected the competition topic, “Prenatal care for Latin American migrants in Pennsylvania,” authored a detailed background guide for participants, formed teams, recruited judges and coordinated event logistics.

Their efforts culminated in a well-attended competition featuring seven teams and 29 participants across the medical, doctoral, doctor of public health and master of public health programs. Students presented creative public health strategies ranging from mobile prenatal clinics and pop-up telehealth stations to culturally tailored support groups and multilingual hotlines.

A panel of three faculty judges — Lentes; Kristin Sznajder, assistant professor of public health sciences; and Nirmal Ahuja, assistant professor of biobehavioral health at Penn State Harrisburg — selected the top three teams:

• First place: Grace Wilkowski, Marissa Lippinkhof, Anton Aluquin and Kruthika Doreswamy
• Second place: Emily Wertz, Brady Dolan, Anna Verevkina, Eva Eleftheriadis, Kaitlyn Kutz and Ilana Korogodsky
• Third place: Angel Chou, Victor Lin and Shakila Shah

The winning team earned the opportunity to present their solution — Compañeras en el Parto, a doula education and community pipeline program — at the Penn State Global Health Conference in spring 2026.

As one of the competition’s organizers, Eleftheriadis said the experience offered students something they can’t always get in traditional coursework.

“Making us think with a global health perspective through the competition helps mold us to be patient-centered physicians with a humanistic, holistic lens,” she said. “By thinking about global health problems, we can critically analyze our own system and work toward making health care better for all populations, given how health is globally interconnected.”

Lentes said she was particularly proud of the students’ initiative in developing their own case, an effort that mirrored the complexity and creativity expected in national competitions.

“Our students didn’t just participate — they built something meaningful for the college and for future global health leaders,” she said.

The Global Health Interest Group plans to make the intramural case competition an annual tradition, expanding opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration and experiential learning in global health.