This summer, 36 College of Health students gained valuable skills outside the classroom in research, social impact and community engagement through Impact Fellowships. Organized through Lehigh’s Office of Creative Inquiry, Impact Fellowships advance multi-year projects with a focus on addressing sustainable development challenges in low-resource and middle-income locations around the globe.
Through experiential learning opportunities such as study abroad and fieldwork, the students worked to improve health disparities at home in Bethlehem and in communities as far away as Kazakhstan. Read on to learn about the experiences of three COH students majoring in community and global health, biostatistics and health data science, and population health.
Giancarlo Apolito ’28
Walkability in South Bethlehem - Rethinking Walkability and Accessibility in Southside Bethlehem for All Residents, Lehigh Valley Social Impact Fellowship
Giancarlo Apolito ’28 participated in Mapping for Change - Rethinking Walkability and Accessibility in Southside Bethlehem for All Residents, a student-based research fellowship led by COH professor Jong Cheol Shin. This program addresses walkability and accessibility conditions in South Bethlehem, with a focus on inclusive design. The team is using GIS technology to build an interactive map that displays walkability and accessibility data visually.
For Apolito, a community and global health major, the project is personal. “With a brother with Down Syndrome, I have always been driven to participate in health equity research because of the challenges I see him face in life,” he said. “This project helped me fulfill my aspirations of improving health inequities for the community of South Bethlehem, ultimately helping the community become more accessible and active.”
This opportunity supports his goal of becoming a healthcare professional by learning how to address healthcare challenges through research, rather than clinical work. He shared that the COH has helped him to explore different interests in healthcare, such as healthcare administration, and enriched his understanding of health in a way that will propel him in his future.
Juanita Stuenkel ’28 (no photo available)
Behavior-Adaptive Epidemic Digital Twin for Community Health Resilience, NextGen Pathways to Transformative Impact Fellowship
According to Juanita Stuenkel ’28, a biostatistics and health data science major, the overall goal of the Behavior-Adaptive Epidemic Digital Twin for Community Health Resilience is to create a simulation of the opioid epidemic that takes into account both societal barriers and social factors. Under the mentorship of COH professor Wayne Lee, the team plans to build a model that can test potential policies and interventions in a simulated environment before being implemented into real communities.
In her role in Treatment Barrier Classification, she works with a partner to analyze data sets to determine which factors are most important to include, so that other team members can implement them into the simulation. “Once our simulation is built and tested for accuracy, we want to help local communities by using the simulation to test various opioid interventions for efficacy before they are implemented,” she explained.
Stuenkel said this experience has supported her career goals by showing her what goes into designing a disease forecast simulation and providing valuable experience outside of the classroom, while aligning with her academic interests. She chose to attend the COH specifically because of the biostatistics and health data science major. “I had been interested in public health for years, and I also have always loved math. Lehigh was one of the very few universities that had a biostatistics major, which combines my two interests perfectly,” she said.
Tiya Patel ’27
TremorTrack: Microtremor Detection Device for Early Diagnosis of Neurological Disorders, Global Social Impact Fellowship
Population health major Tiya Patel ’27 contributed to TremorTrack, an interdisciplinary project focused on improving neurological care for individuals with Parkinson’s disease. She shared that the team is working to prototype a noninvasive, biocompatible wrist-worn device that utilizes various sensors to monitor and track symptoms, as well as implementing a medication adherence aspect within the device. Patel chose to participate because the project seamlessly combined her interests in medicine, neuroscience, global health and health equity with a real-world challenge.
According to Patel, her role was “centered on understanding and supporting the needs of patients, caregivers and healthcare professionals to ensure that our project equitably took into account all of the crucial voices in creating this device.” Last year, she conducted fieldwork in Almaty, Kazakhstan, where she participated in interviews, attended healthcare conferences, shadowed neurologists and helped to lead a cross-cultural workshop on neurological care. She now mentors the current fellows as the SuperFellow on the project.
“As a population health major and an aspiring physician, this opportunity was nothing short of remarkable,” she said. “I was able to connect certain aspects of biology, health equity and justice that I had learned in the classroom to the real-world. I am very grateful that I had the opportunity to be a part of this meaningful experience, and I think that every student at Lehigh should apply if they are able to!”
