On Saturday, February 8, 2025, twelve teams of University of Notre Dame students competed to address a global health challenge at the 10th Annual Global Health Case Competition in the Jordan Hall of Science.

This year’s case challenged students to pitch proposals for integrating palliative care among children and adolescents who are being treated for cancer in Uganda over a one-year period. Palliative care focuses on improving the quality of life for those with serious illnesses. Each team consisted of four to six students from across the University who brought their various areas of expertise to their group’s collaboration process.

“The teams were innovative and came up with a variety of solutions that ranged from providing caregiver grants to partnering with local hospice organizations for staff training and hiring,” said Marian Botchway, assistant director of the Eck Institute for Global Health. “The beauty of having multidisciplinary teams participate in this competition is being able to see how creative and thoughtful students can be when collaborating and grappling with complex health issues.”

The competition day consisted of two rounds. The participants received the case in advance and had approximately ten days to prepare. All teams presented their solutions to the case in round one. The top four teams were selected to move on to round two, where they were given a new variable in the case that they had to apply to their prepared strategy. The final four teams then presented how they would address this new variable, and judges deliberated to determine the top solution.

“The extent to which teams did their research to identify what could be meaningful on the ground was awesome,” commented Botchway, who also directs the annual Global Health Case Competition. “I am aware that at least two teams contacted some local experts in Uganda to obtain some feedback on their ideas for the case, which is quite impressive.”

The winning team of Ivy Clark (‘26, Neuroscience and Behavior), Charlie Desnoyers (‘26, Chemistry), Victoria Gibek (‘28, Science Preprofessional Studies and Global Affairs), Kelly Griffin (‘26, EMBA), and Owen McDonald (‘28, Neuroscience and Behavior) will move on to represent Notre Dame at the Emory Morningside Global Health Case Competition, hosted at Emory University in Atlanta at the end of March. The team will collaborate on a new global health case that is given to all participating teams from universities worldwide.

“One of the most striking things about the winning team was the inclusion of a multilevel framework to help put Uganda’s issues into context. This served as a springboard for their round one and round two solutions,” Botchway said.

In early March, the winning team presented its proposal to members of Palliative Care Association of Uganda (PCAU) and their partner, Global Partners in Care, based in Mishawaka. Botchway added, “This is the 10th year of the case competition at Notre Dame, and it was great that we were able to partner with organizations that are willing to review all of the teams’ ideas and consider how those ideas could potentially help reduce health disparities, especially among children with cancer and their families.”

Preparation for each year’s competition begins during the fall semester, when there are seminars that provide students with opportunities to learn more about the competition and talk with faculty and staff members who have global health and development experience. Interested students are highly encouraged to attend the dinner seminars. To learn more about next year’s Global Health Case Competition, please contact Marian Botchway.

Contact:

Damienne Jugovic, Communications Specialist
Notre Dame Research / University of Notre Dame
djugovic@nd.edu / 574.631.7029
research.nd.edu / @UNDResearch

About the Eck Institute for Global Health

The Eck Institute for Global Health (EIGH), an integral part of Notre Dame Research, builds on the University’s historical strength in infectious disease research, including vector-borne diseases, while broadening the interdisciplinary expertise into other key global health areas including maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH); community health; mental health; nutrition and non-communicable diseases; the environment and health; health analytics and technologies; and health systems and organizations. Our team of interdisciplinary researchers and their students holistically address health disparities around the world. EIGH faculty affiliates recognize health as a fundamental human right and promote research, training, and service to advance health standards for all people, especially those in resource-poor countries who are disproportionately impacted by preventable diseases. The EIGH is training the next generation of global health researchers and leaders through undergraduate, Master of Science in Global Health, doctoral, and postdoctoral programs.

Originally published by Damienne Jugovic at globalhealth.nd.edu on March 12, 2025.