Child Health

Barbara Israel

Barbara Israel: Driven to give back

Pioneering community-based participatory researcher commits to fostering future public health leaders

Barbara Israel’s career at the University of Michigan School of Public Health has been defined by her unwavering commitment to community-based participatory research (CBPR), health equity and her students. Israel, professor emerita of Health Behavior & Health Equity, has spent the majority of her career fostering and supporting community-academic partnerships aimed at understanding and addressing social determinants of health inequities.

Wadad Itani

Beirut tragedy inspires graduate's public health mission

Wadad Itani, MPH ’24

After surviving Beirut's 2020 explosion, Wadad Itani decided to dedicate her life to helping others and prioritizing human health. Itani’s journey culminates in earning a Master of Public Health in Health Behavior and Health Education from the University of Michigan School of Public Health.

Brianna Siracuse, Master’s Student in Environmental Health Sciences, University of Michigan School of Public Health

Shaping Science-Based Policy to Prevent Breast Cancer

Brianna Siracuse

Reading environmental literature was a call to action for master’s student Brianna Siracuse, whose background is in chemistry and toxicology. As a public health student at Michigan, she is bringing together environmental health sciences with policy work to improve health and safety for all.

Kennedy Dubose

Turning Experience, Knowledge, and Education into Better Public Health

Kennedy Dubose

Kennedy Dubose studies public health not only for personal and intellectual reasons but also for what she sees as moral, ethical imperatives. Growing up, she saw public health systems failing Black communities. With a combination of local and global training, she is looking to promote more equitable community health in Detroit and around the globe.

Omar Ilyas

Choose to Act: How to Build An International NGO While Graduating from School

Omar Ilyas, BS ’19

Driven by a desire to do something about an emerging water crisis in Pakistan, Omar Ilyas and some friends started fundraising to build a well. About 24 months later, they had completed funding and construction on their 750th water well through their nonprofit Paani. The 2019 graduate is not stopping there.

Briana Nelson

Total Transformation: Focus, Execution, and What We Want to Do with Our Lives

Briana Nelson

In eighth grade, Briana Nelson decided to improve her fitness. With personal initiative and family support, a lifetime passion for nutrition was born. “It was a total transformation,” Nelson says, and her ability to focus and move herself forward toward big goals is helping her achieve great things as a student-athlete and as an ambassador for health equity.