Collaborative Specialization in Global Health Doctoral Program
Through various activities, including coursework and experiential learning opportunities, Doctoral students in the Collaborative Specialization in Global Health (CSGH) will reflect and deepen their knowledge about interdisciplinary approaches and responses to global health issues. Students will get opportunities to engage with leading global health faculty, career training opportunities and help to develop skills that advance their research objectives.
Application Requirements
Students who have already been accepted into a participating doctoral program at the University of Toronto are eligible to apply to the CSGH.
EXTENDED application deadline for 2025: Friday, July 4 at 11:59 PM ET
Application requirements for the CSGH:
- Fill out the following online application form:
2. In one PDF, send the additional materials listed below to globalhealth.dlsph@utoronto.ca. Save the file by including your name and stream (Firstname_Lastname – CSGH Doctoral Stream Application):
- Personal statement (two pages, single-spaced): Describe your global-health-related experiences – including coursework and independent research completed at the undergraduate and/or Master’s levels, as well as professional and volunteer experiences – and how these experiences have influenced your interest in global health and prepared you for the Collaborative Specialization in Global Health.
- Curriculum vitae
- Writing samples: Doctoral stream applicants must submit two academic writing samples (less than 20 pages each). E.g., research paper completed for course work; undergraduate or graduate thesis; peer review publication). Select writing samples that reflect your individual contribution to the work (e.g. first author). We are looking for evidence of critical thinking, analytic and synthesis skills and clear writing skills including the ability to structure cogent arguments. Ideally the writing samples should reflect your interest in global health.
Program Requirements
For doctoral students admitted to the Collaborative Specialization in Global Health, formal requirements are:
1) Participation in CHL5701H: Doctoral Seminar, Collaborative Specialization in Global Health, a half-credit global health research seminar course, for two semesters during your studies. Students are encouraged to attend the CSGH seminar whenever they are in Toronto.
2) Completion of ONE core course. Students may choose between:
CHL5420H: Global Health Research
CHL 5702H: History of International Health
CHL 5704H: International Human Rights Law and Global Health: The Right to Health in Theory and Practice
JCR 1000Y: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Global Challenges
NUR 1038H: Social Determinants of Health in a Global Context: Theories and Methods
NUR 1083H: Comparative Politics of Health and Health Policy in a Globalizing World
if there isn’t a core course on this list that meets your learning objectives or you are not able to take, please consult the CSGH director.
3) Completion of one approved elective course from outside your home department (this is in addition to the core course). The elective must be approved by the CSGH Director.
4) Writing and defending a thesis related to global health. Your advisor or one member of your doctoral dissertation committee must be a global health scholar. Please consult our website for suggestions of global health faculty. For additional support you may contact globalhealth.dlsph@utoronto.ca
5) Doctoral students participating in CSGH are responsible for meeting the doctoral requirements of their home departments.
Participating programs
The program is available to PhD students in the following participating graduate units:
- Department of Anthropology
- Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry
- Faculty of Dentistry
- Geography and Planning
- Health Policy, Management and Evaluation
- Faculty of Law
- Institute of Medical Science
- Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing
- Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy
- Department of Political Sciences
- Public Health Sciences
- Rehabilitation Sciences Institute
- Department of Nutritional Sciences
PhD Students Starting in 2024
| Name | Contact Information | Home Department/Division | Supervisor/s | Research Interests and Area |
| Narjis Fatima Hussain | narjisfatima.hussain@mail.utoronto.ca | Nutritional Sciences | Dr. Zulfiqar Bhutta | Impact of heat exposure on maternal health, nutrition, and child growth; Co-designed interventions to mitigate heat impacts on health |
| Sarah Al Ayass | sarah.alayass@mail.utoronto.ca | Nursing | Dr. Kimberley Widger | Palliative care integration into primary healthcare in low to middle-income countries for externally displaced individuals. |
| Titilola Abolade | titilola.abolade@mail.utoronto.ca | DrPH | Dr. Zulfiqar Bhutta | Maternal and child health and nutrition; anemia trends and determinants among women of reproductive age in Nigeria; strengthening an integrated multisectoral response to accelerate anemia reduction |
| Zeana Hamdonah | zeana.hamdonah@mail.utoronto.ca | PhD Kinesiology | Dr. Janelle Joseph | Settler colonialism and land disconnection as a social determinant of health. |
PhD Students Starting in 2023
| Name | Contact Information | Home Department/Division | Supervisor/s | Research Interests and Area |
| Asha Behdinan | asha.behdinan@mail.utoronto.ca | IHPME – Clinical Epi HSR | Prabhat Jha | |
| Bryan Gascon | Bryan.gascon@mail.utoronto.ca | IHPME – HSR | Avram Denburg | |
| Chidumebi Idemili | chidumebi.idemili@mail.utoronto.ca | IHPME – HSR | Sharmistha Mishra | |
| Frishta Nafeh | frishta.nafeh@mail.utoronto.ca | IHPME – HSR | Dan Werb | |
| Gladys Olisaekee | gladys.olisaekee@mail.utoronto.ca | PHS – DrPH | Patricia O’Campo & Ibukun Abejirinde | |
| Mary Anne Panoyan | m.panoyan@mail.utoronto.ca | Anthropology | Frank Wendt | |
| Momtaz Begum | m.begum@mail.utoronto.ca | PHS – SBHS | Erica Di Ruggiero | |
| Pavel Zhelnov | p.zhelnov@mail.utoronto.ca | IHPME – HSR | Andrea Tricco | |
| Sharifullah Wahdati | s.wahdati@mail.utoronto.ca | Department of Nutritional Sciences | Zulfiqar Bhutta |
PhD Students Starting in 2022
| Name | Contact Information | Home Department/Division | Supervisor/s | Research Interests and Area |
| Sonali Amarasekera | PHS – Epidemiology | Prabhat Jha | ||
| Dorothy Apedaile | PHS – Epidemiology | Susan Bondy | ||
| Rhonda Boateng | IHPME Health Services Research | Elizabeth Lin | ||
| Lauren Brander | DrPH | |||
| Damilola Iduye | PHS – Social and Behavioural Health Sciences | Erica Di Ruggiero | ||
| Irenius Konkor | Geography | Vincent Kuuire | ||
| Prossy Namyalo | IHPME Health Services Research | Lisa Forman and Beverley Essue | ||
| Titilola Omotosho | OISE Social Justice Education | Njoki Wane | ||
| Carlos Sanchez-Pimienta | PHS – Social and Behavioural Health Sciences | Blake Poland | ||
| Lauren Smith | IHPME Health Services Research | Erica Di Ruggiero |
PhD Students Starting in 2021
| Name | Contact Information | Home Department/Division | Supervisor/s | Research Interests and Area |
| Jorge Angel-Mira | jorge.angelmira@mail.utoronto.ca | PHS – Social and Behavioural Health Sciences | Anne-Emanuelle Birn | Migration, Free Trade, Extractive Sector, and the impact on Public Health |
| V. Armineh Babikian | @therapists_for_Armenia; therapistsforarmenia.org | Rehabilitation Sciences Institute | Yani Hamdani | Primary care access for individuals with IDD in Armenia |
| Ethel Barnes | ethel.barnes@mail.utoronto.ca | PHS – Social and Behavioural Health Sciences | Stephanie Nixon | Health Equity and Policy; Healthcare access; Black/African populations |
| Kayla Alexandra Benjamin |
Twitter: KaylaBenjamin_ |
IHPME – Health Services Research (Health Policy) | Erica Di Ruggiero | Health equity; Gender and health; The global care economy |
| Hammad Durrani |
hammad.durrani@mail.utoronto.ca Twitter: @hammaddurrani16 |
IHPME – Health Services Research (Health Policy) | Xiaolin Wei | Global Health, Digital Health, Strategy development, scale of services and impact measurement. |
| Amira Khan | amira.khan@mail.utoronto.ca | Nutritional Sciences | Zulfiqar Bhutta | Maternal & infant nutrition, Implementation research, Integrated strategies in conflict settings |
| Kokui D. Klutse | kokui.klutse@mail.utoronto.ca | Lawrence S Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing | Linda Johnston | Child Health and Newborn Care-Developmentally Supportive Care practices in Preterm Infant care. |
| Snigdha Velugu | snigdha.velugu@utoronto.ca | PHS – Social and Behavioural Health Sciences | Erica Di Ruggiero and Anushka Atuallajan | Arts-based research, community-based participatory research, menstrual health, maternal and child health, global health. |
| Breanna Wodnik |
breanna.wodnik@mail.utoronto.ca Twitter: @BreannaWodnik |
IHPME – Health Services Research (Outcomes and Evaluation) | Erica Di Ruggiero | Stakeholder engagement; fair partnerships; neglected tropical diseases |
PhD Students Starting in 2020
| Name | Contact Information | Home Department/Division | Supervisor/s | Research Interests and Area |
| Stephen Adombire | Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing | |||
| Andrea Bowra | andrea.bowra@mail.utoronto.ca | PHS – Social and Behavioural Health Sciences | Jillian Kohler | corruption in the pharmaceutical industry |
| Samuel Henderson | samuel.henderson@mail.utoronto.ca | Department of Political Science (Public Policy and Canadian Politics) | TBD | Orphan Drug Policy; Gender, Gender Norms, and Health; Global Health Policy |
| Jean-Luc Kortenaar | PHS – Epidemiology | |||
| Fiona Muttalib | IHPME | |||
| Tolulope Ojo |
@TA_Ojo (twitter) |
IHPME – Health Services Research | Nav Persaud | Access to Medicines, Sexual, Reproductive, Maternal Newborn and Child Health |
| Mariame Ouedraogo | PHS – Epidemiology | Hilary Brown and Diego Bassani | maternal and child health, health systems strengthening, conflict and health, community-based participatory action research, and implementation and evaluation research | |
| Isabel Potani | Nutritional Sciences | |||
| Ziyue (Lily) Zhang | Student Profile Link | Geography and Planning | Vincent Kuuire | subfields of health and urban geography |
PhD Students Starting in 2019
| Name | Contact Information | Home Department/Division | Supervisor/s | Research Interests and Area |
| Sujata Mishra | IHPME – Health Services Research (Health Economics) | Nancy Reichman and Audrey Laporte | Maternal and child health outcomes and non-communicable diseases in low resource settings | |
| Victoria Haldane | IHPME – Outcomes and Evaluation | Xiaolin Wei | Evaluation Methods, Tuberculosis Control, eHealth | |
| Brandon Maser | brandon.maser@mail.utoronto.ca; brandon.maser@sickkids.ca | IHPME – Health Services Research (Health Policy) | Mark Dobrow and Avram Denburg | Global child health policy; internationally-controlled essential medicines; global palliative care access |
| David Hill |
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-hill-globalhealth |
PHS – Social and Behavioural Health Sciences | Anne-Emanuelle Birn | Global health policy in Latin America, mining and extractive industries, societal determinants of health |
| Genevieve Armstrong | genevieve.armstrong@utoronto.ca | Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing | Denise Gastaldo | Tuberculosis and Migration |
| Alyssa Kelly | IHPME – Health Services Research | Melanie Barwick | ||
| Miranda Loutet | miranda.loutet@mail.utoronto.ca | PHS – Epidemiology | Daniel Roth | maternal, newborn and child health |
| Garrett Morgan | garrett.morgan@mail.utoronto.ca | Geography and Planning | Blake Poland and John Robinson | Inclusive Urban Resilience and Sustainability; Healthy Cities; Place-Based Public Health Strategies |
| Archchun Ariyarajah | archchun.ariyarajah@mail.utoronto.ca | PHS – Epidemiology | Shelly Bolotin & Jeff Kwong | Vaccine-preventable diseases, Infectious disease outbreaks, Epidemiological surveillance data |
| Vinyas Harish | IHPME and Faculty of Medicine | Laura Rosella and Kamran Khan |
PhD Students Starting in 2018
| Name | Contact Information | Home Department/Division | Supervisor/s | Dissertation/Research Interests |
| Bianca Carducci |
Bianca.carducci@sickkids.ca LinkedIn: linkedin.com/biancarducci |
Nutritional Sciences | Dr. Zulfiqar A. Bhutta | I’m really interested in the nexus between global food, nutrition, and the environment. My dissertation is focused on the health and nutrition of school-aged children in two provinces of Pakistan. |
| Loreto Fernandez | Social and Behavioural Health Sciences | Anne-Emanuelle Birn | ||
| Amrita Kumar-Ratta | amrita.Kumar.ratta@mail.utoronto.ca | Geography | Katharine Rankin (committee members: Rupaleem Bhuyan, Deborah Cowen, Alissa Trotz) | Feminist political geographies; critical histories and current-day experiences of reproductive health, wellbeing |
| Juyeon Lee | Social and Behavioural Health Sciences | Erica Di Ruggiero & Lisa Forman |
Social inequalities in health, especially the relationship between precarious employment and health. I am focusing on examining how the lived experiences of online platform workers vary across different social, economic and political contexts. | |
| Sarah O’Sullivan |
Twitter: @s_oparkivan |
Anthropology | Holly Wardlow & Bianca Dahl | Medical anthropology, development, post-conflict, humanitarianism, HIV/AIDS, personhood, stigma theory, East Africa, Uganda, Acholi |
| Kathryn Wiens | Epidemiology | Stephen Hwang | ||
| Sarah Williams |
sarah.williams@mail.utoronto.ca Twitter: @misantropologa |
Anthropology | Janice Boddy and Holly Wardlow | Maternal/Reproductive Health, Mexican midwifery, Mayas, Indigenous Health, Obstetric violence, Vaccine hesitancy |
PhD Students Starting in 2017
| Name | Contact Information | Home Department/Division | Supervisor/s | Dissertation/Research Interests |
| Shamim Ahmed |
shamimjitu.ahmed@mail.utoronto.ca LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/shamimahmedjitu/ |
Social and Behavioural Health Sciences | Daniel Sellen, Shafi Bhuiyan | Urban health, Labor market, Health equity, Development economics, Global Health, and Health policy |
| Kayvan Viand | IHPME | Alex Jadad | ||
| Natasha Altin | Social and Behavioural Health Sciences | Stephanie Nixon | Assistive technology, rehabilitation, disability, occupational therapy; rehabilitation systems’ services, policies and research | |
| Michelle Amri | Twitter: @michelle_amri | Social and Behavioural Health Sciences | Patricia O’Campo & Theresa Enright | Public Health Policy; Health Equity; Urban Health; Discourse Analysis |
| Isha Berry |
isha.berry@mail.utoronto.ca Twitter: @ishaberry2 |
Epidemiology | Dr. David Fisman | Transmission Dynamics of Influenza and Avian Influenza in Urban Bangladesh |
| Allison Daniel |
allison.daniel@mail.utoronto.ca Twitter: @KusamalaProgram |
Nutritional Sciences | Dr. Robert Bandsma | Developmental and nutritional outcomes in children with severe acute malnutrition |
| Calvin Ke |
calvin.ke@mail.utoronto.ca Twitter: @calvinke |
Clinical Epidemiology and Health Care Research; Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation | Baiju Shah, Prabhat Jha, Thérèse Stukel, Juliana Chan | Young-onset type 2 diabetes, global diabetes epidemiology |
| Rozina Somani |
rozina.somani@mail.utoronto.ca LinkedIn: rozinasomani@gmail.com |
Faculty of Nursing |
Carles Muntaner PhD MHS Professor Division of Social and Behavioral Sciences, DLSPH |
My field of study is “critical approaches to health and health outcomes” and my PhD research focuses on “violence in the healthcare sectors.” I am planning to implement a Workplace Violence Reporting System for Nurses in a Healthcare Setting in Pakistan. |
| Sarah Sutherland | Epidemiology | Paula Braitstein & Harry Shannon | International health development with a focus on maternal and child health | |
| Bernice Yanful | Public Health Sciences | Anne-Emanuelle Birn |