Since 2018 IGHS Education has been pleased to host the Summer Researchers in Global Health internship program affectionately known as SRGH funded by generous private donors in the San Francisco Bay Area. SRGH is an activity under the umbrella of Global REACH program which connects several global health initiatives to create a pathway from high school to early career, with mentorship and support from global health faculty and staff at each step. The pathway begins in UCSF’s San Francisco Bay Area community, with education programs for high school students and teachers to introduce young audiences to global health. The pathway continues with undergraduate, graduate, and professional education across the University of California and extends to postdoctoral and early career research at the UCs and around the world.
IGHS has served 49 students and has connected more than 65 global health practitioners and faculty with high school learners across the Bay Area.
The program has been overwhelmingly successful and has been widely accepted across the Bay Area. Even during the COVID-19 pandemic, the program was highly in demand, and we took the opportunity to connect with students virtually. Now having completed our 7th year, we are preparing to expand the program into a University of California system-wide endeavor. It is our goal that SRGH will sit at the seat of global health in the University of California system, University of California Global Health Institute (UCGHI). We envision future interns with access to world class global health practitioners and leaders across the UC system at all 10 UC campuses, including UCSF.
So that we may retool and transition successfully, IGHS will not accept applications for summer of 2025. Our efforts in this year will be focused on reshaping the next iteration of the SRGH internship program to serve a greater number of students in the State of California than we ever could have done on one single campus.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank the generous private donors who have made SRGH possible, the UCSF MS in Global Health alumni, who have led the program, the Steering Committee, and the global leaders who have taken time out of their schedules to meet with and mentor our students.
We invite you to continue following and supporting Global REACH in the coming years. In the future, it is our greatest desire to roll out a global health post-doctoral positions for international professionals as we continue to create pathways for people from all communities to study and work in global health.
Summer Researchers in Global Health is a six-week summer internship for rising high school seniors that introduces students to global health concepts and immerses them in challenging, real-life projects. Each summer, qualified students from participating San Francisco Bay Area high schools learn from and work with expert global health researchers at the Institute for Global Health Sciences on the UCSF Mission Bay campus.