In this episode, Dr. Rob Murphy welcomes Dr. Hester Klopper, Deputy-Vice Chancellor of Strategy, Global and Corporate Affairs at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. The two discuss the new Stellenbosch University/Northwestern University Global Health Knowledge Hub (SUNU Hub) which has been designed to unite the universities, broaden their scope of expertise and discovery and offer more opportunities for international collaborations between students, trainees, staff and faculty. They discuss this innovative project and talk about Dr. Klopper’s career in global health and facilitating major international collaborations such as the SUNU Hub.

Patti Gravitt, PhD, began her life-long career dedicated to global human papillomavirus (HPV) and cervical cancer research and prevention from a young age. Most recently, she has shifted her research focus to advocating for implementation science and systems approaches to tackle global cervical cancer health disparities. Gravitt is trained as a molecular epidemiologist, implementation scientist, and currently is the Senior Advisor of Populations and System Sciences at the National Cancer Institute Center for Global Health. In this episode, Gravitt discusses her career path in global health, her cervical cancer research, and how implementation science research can help achieve global health equity in cancer.

As a first-generation Chinese-American, whose parents left China during the communist revolution, Kathryn Chu, MD, knew early on in life that being raised in an upper middle class family in the Midwestern United States was “an accident of birth.” This knowledge propelled her into a career in global health, specifically humanitarian and global surgery. Now, as the Director of the Centre for Global Surgery at Stellenbosch University in South Africa, Chu is dedicated to shaping a world with equitable access to quality surgical care for all. In this episode, Chu details her career path to global health and her goals for the future.