Emory-Ethiopia Trainee Earns Fulbright-Fogarty Fellowship in Public Health

Katherine Ku

The Fulbright-Fogarty Fellowships in Public Health has selected Katherine Ku, BA, as a 2020 fellow for her work with Emory University Ethiopia. Emory-Ethiopia is a nongovernmental organization (NGO) dedicated to bringing together important players from across Ethiopia and the Emory Network to advance scientific discoveries and deliver well-informed, locally led services to communities. This partnership was initiated by the School of Nursing and Ethiopian partners more than a decade ago and has led to a host of public health advancements across both Ethiopia and the US.

The Fulbright-Fogarty Fellowships in Public Health, offered through a partnership between the Fulbright program and the Fogarty International Center at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), help to promote the expansion of public health research in resource-limited settings. Candidates must be enrolled in medical school or in a graduate-level program.

Ku currently attends Touro University California College of Osteopathic Medicine as a fourth-year medical student. She has been accepted as a trainee of Abebe Gebremariam and John Cranmer, global advocates for maternal-infant health and central figures in the Emory-Ethiopia maternal-infant health partnership. The research produced by the Emory-Ethiopia partnership is coauthored by scientists across Ethiopia and the US and has had measurable positive impacts in both countries.

Ku’s personal research will draw upon more than a decade of locally led analysis done through the Emory-Ethiopia partnership. She intends to leverage findings on the factors that prompt community members to seek care for potentially life-threatening signs of infection in newborns in Ethiopia. She will apply these insights to create a community-based care strategy that includes broad, ongoing input from local stakeholders in the Amhara region of Ethiopia and then evaluate its effectiveness over time.