News and features

The Office of Global Affairs and Population Health Initiative are partnering to offer a one credit General Studies course that will introduce students to the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals, research at the University of Washington aligned with those goals, and the role the goals play in improving population health, societies, and the environment, both locally and globally.

Registration opens February 10, 2023! 

Visit our website to see the course overview, details, learning goals, and facilitators.

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The Office of Global Affairs is excited to celebrate Dr. Ana Lucia Seminario for our December 2022 edition of the Global Visionaries series. The Global Visionaries series highlights the University of Washington’s global impact by featuring innovative, globally-engaged faculty, staff, and students.

Dr. Ana Lucia Seminario, Director, UW Timothy A. DeRouen Center for Global Oral Health, Associate Professor, Pediatric Dentistry, Adjunct Associate Professor, Global Health describes her vision for advancing global oral health in Thailand, Kenya, Peru, and Washington State through collaborative, sustainable, and cross-disciplinary research partnerships.

Dr. Seminario obtained her DDS and Pediatric Dentistry certificate from Cayetano Heredia University (Peru) before earning her PhD in Stomatology from Charles University (Czech Republic) and MPH in Epidemiology from the University of Washington. She is a Diplomate of the American Board of Pediatric Dentistry and is also Director of UW International Visiting (Pediatric) Dentist Program and on staff at Seattle Children’s Hospital Dental Medicine.

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I am originally from Chiclayo, a city in the northwest of Peru. After finishing high school, I moved to Lima, where I earned my DDS degree and Pediatric Dentistry certificate from the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia. I then pursued a fantastic opportunity to participate in a four-month fellowship in public health at Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic, where I learned about the importance of understanding how policies impact public health at community and country levels. I decided to stay in Prague for an additional four years to complete my PhD in Stomatology. From there I had the chance to participate in two fellowships; the first one at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota and the second one at the World Health Organization Oral Health Program in Geneva, Switzerland.

After finishing my doctorate program, I moved to Seattle, Washington and began my life in the United States. I was accepted to the Summer Institute in Clinical Dental Research Methods, a six-week training program hosted by the University of Washington School of Dentistry. I fell in love with the summer weather in Seattle. I remember it was the middle of July and I was so impressed by the beauty of Mount Rainier and the Puget Sound. After the Summer Institute, I was recruited by Timothy DeRouen and enrolled in the T32 program that is part of the National Institutes of Health training for postdocs. I was also recruited by the University of Washington Department of Pediatric Dentistry to be an affiliate faculty, later becoming part-time faculty, and eventually full-time faculty. In 2008, I decided to pursue an MPH in Epidemiology from the University of Washington. It was an incredible opportunity for my professional growth as the program is very strong in research methodology and evidence-based research and gave me the chance to mentor residents on their research projects.

In 2017, I was asked to lead and rebrand the UW Timothy A. DeRouen Center for Global Oral Health, which was named in honor of Timothy DeRouen, the first researcher to receive a NIH D43 grant for oral health from the National Institutes of Health. This type of grant aims at increasing research capacities in low- and middle-income countries by creating training opportunities like master or doctorate degrees. One of the first things I did as Director of the DeRouen Center was to examine our existing global relationships. I decided to expand our activities beyond Thailand and Southeast Asia to include Kenya, Peru, and Washington State.

My vision is for the DeRouen Center for Global Oral Health and the University of Washington to become a reference site for global oral health. I am striving for us to become a World Health Organization collaborative center for oral health in the future. It takes a lot of time to build trust among partners and we want to make sure that we have a sustainable impact at all of our research sites. Our long-term goal is for our international partner sites to become the headquarters for oral health research activities in their respective regions around the world.

In my opinion, it is imperative that our research is determined by the priorities of each of our research locations. We take the lead from the communities we are working in, which aligns with the University of Washington’s approach for engaging with low- and middle-income countries. We intentionally work to ensure that our research projects will be sustainable over time. We are excited that our partners, especially the senior collaborators, are working hard to mentor junior oral health researchers and offer training and educational opportunities so that they can become future leaders, such as National Institutes of Health Principal Investigators and grant holders.

In Kenya, we began working with Professor Arthur Kemoli, a pediatric dentist and orthodontist based at the United Nations. We started this work focusing on how we could integrate oral health within the HIV network. We are helping the families of children who are living with HIV, or who have been exposed to HIV, to better understand oral health and how that impacts the quality of life of their children. We initiated different projects and got several grants to work with the Kenyatta National Hospital. Currently we are also working in Kisumu in Western Kenya where I will be visiting for two weeks in February 2023 for the kickoff of our clinical trial. Additionally, we have an NIH D71 planning grant to set up a research site and will be conducting interviews and facilitating focus groups too.

In Peru, we are working with the Peruvian Ministry of Health. They would like to increase the capabilities of oral health leaders who work in the 24 regions of Peru to

develop sustainable interventions. We conducted a six-month training session that finished a few months ago. We are now serving in an advisory role as they design a five-year campaign to improve the oral health of elderly people living with diabetes.

We also have a National Institutes of Health grant, in collaboration with Yale University, concerning the impact of alcohol use disorders on the oral health of men who have sex with men in Lima. This is a new research area for us. We have just collected the data and are starting to analyze it. We are excited to be working with the local research site, a long-time member of the International National Institutes of Health vaccine network, on their first project focused on oral health.

In Thailand, we originally focused on increasing the research capacity of oral health researchers. The emphasis was on research methodology and on supporting junior faculty who were pursuing MPH and PhD programs in combination with the University of Washington and who would eventually take on leadership roles as Associate Deans or professors to conduct and oversee future research projects. Current research in Thailand is based on our former trainees and now oral health researchers, for example oral clefts, given the high prevalence rates in the region, or on the impact of breastfeeding on dental caries in toddlers.

In Washington State, we want to integrate oral health within the comprehensive medical assessment that refugees receive soon after they resettle here. We have been working closely with the Department of Health, the Department of Community and Human Services, and the Washington State Health Care Authority since they are very interested in improving the health of refugees. Currently, seven clinics are allowed by Washington State to conduct the comprehensive medical assessment that each refugee must complete after their arrival.

We have been working with those seven clinics to better understand their systems and processes. We have identified their barriers and strengths so we can inform them how best to integrate oral health. Our ultimate goal is to use our data to advocate that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend the integration of oral health at all seven clinics in Washington State when assessing the health of refugees. We also hope to educate and inform refugees in Washington State about their Medicaid benefits, given that refugee children have full access to any oral health treatment and refugee adults have access to basic dental care.

A highlight of my career has been serving as Director of the DeRouen Center for Global Oral Health. I feel very lucky to work at the University of Washington. I have found the UW to be very welcoming to an immigrant like myself. I am incredibly grateful that the UW is an institution that promotes cross-disciplinary collaboration. I have found that the university encourages faculty to interact with colleagues from different schools, departments, and colleges to build sustainable relationships and research partnerships that result in rich, robust, and diverse perspectives.

Other highlights include watching my mentees become authors of manuscripts. It amazes me to see my mentees grow professionally. I am also proud of the relationships I have maintained with my colleagues and former professors in Peru. I have been fortunate in many ways and feel that it is my responsibility to give back, whether that be through helping to set up grants in communities across Peru or by working with my mentees to assist them in becoming Principal Investigators. I recently got the opportunity to travel to Peru and reconnect with my former professors. It was delightful to reflect on everything that we have accomplished in our respective academic networks over the years.

The Office of Global Affairs is pleased to announce that Gayle Christensen has agreed to serve as interim Vice Provost for Global Affairs beginning July 1, 2023, stepping in for Jeff Riedinger who is retiring from the UW next summer. The next UW Provost will conduct a search and select a new Vice Provost for Global Affairs.

As Associate Vice Provost for Global Affairs since 2016, Dr. Christensen manages global engagement and business operations and directs strategic priorities, working collaboratively with colleges, schools and centers across the UW to further their global efforts. She is also an Affiliate Assistant Professor in the College of Education and has taught graduate courses in leadership and globalization of higher education.

Prior to joining the UW in 2014, Dr. Christensen spent a decade working in international education. At the University of Pennsylvania, she served as the inaugural Executive Director for Penn Global. There, she developed a range of initiatives aimed at strengthening Penn’s global engagement.

As an expert in comparative education, Dr. Christensen has served as a consultant and researcher in the U.S. and abroad for organizations including the World Bank, Urban Institute and the Bertelsmann Foundation. Her recent research has focused on the study abroad as a high impact practice. Previously, her research focused on the global reach of Massive Open Online Courses and has appeared in such publications as Nature and The Atlantic and online at Slate. Her research has been featured across major media outlets including Harvard Business Review, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. She holds a master’s degree from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and a master’s and doctoral degree from Stanford University.

The Office of Global Affairs is excited to celebrate Dr. Dan Zhu for our October 2022 edition of the Global Visionaries series. The Global Visionaries series is a new initiative to highlight the University of Washington’s global impact by featuring innovative, globally-engaged faculty, staff, and students.

Dr. Dan Zhu began working as the International Engagement Specialist at the VP’s Office of Student Life Division at the UW in November 2015. This position afforded Dan the opportunity to build Unite UW, an on-campus cultural exchange program that has connected 1,800 domestic and international students since its launch.

In September 2019, Dan became Assistant Director of CIRCLE (Center for International Relations and Cultural Leadership Exchange), a new center that serves as a resource hub and a home away from home for 8,000+ international students at UW. One of her accomplishments includes creating Regional Connection Groups, a summer program that connects and onboards international undergraduates before they arrive on campus.

Unite UW

Born and raised in a small village in South China, I learned how to make the best out of the little that I had. After graduating from Beijing Normal University in 2005 as a first gen, I became a middle school English teacher in Beijing. My parents were disappointed because by becoming a teacher, I destroyed their only hope to bring fortune and fame to the family. However, I was more disappointed at China’s testing-oriented education which, in my opinion, squelched kids’ motivations to learn.

Three years later, after I won an “important” teaching competition, the school in Beijing sent me to Edinburgh as a reward to teach Chinese language and culture. During that year, while I got to show a more authentic China through the lived experience of my friends and family to the 400+ Scottish pupils and teachers in my hosting school, my eyes were also opened to many exciting ways to teach and to inspire. Besides whisky and Ceilidh dance, I learned so many wonderful things from my Scottish friends and mentors, including new perspectives of life and of the world.

Holding onto those new learnings, I believed the world would become bigger if I allowed myself to see more. That’s how I came to the U.S. in 2009, specifically to the University of Washington in Seattle, to pursue graduate school in Education (M.Ed.), in TESOL (M.A.), and later in English Composition (Ph.D.). Much more than the degrees themselves, I tutored students from Japan and South Korea, volunteered to teach seniors from minority backgrounds to pass their citizenship interviews, taught after school Chinese immersion classes with small children, and substitute taught with many other instructors’ lesson plans. I also learned about discrimination in Education first hand: imagine me teaching ESL to students who only want to learn from native English speakers; or imagine a Chinese lady teaching American college students how to write in English.

A better question to ask is, who inspired me to launch Unite UW? The answer is that students inspired me. When I was teaching first-year composition at the UW from 2012 to 2016, students shared many of their struggles at my office hours. It seemed that the UW they were experiencing was siloed and disconnected. Many struggled to fit in or to find belonging. I also observed many UW classes as part of my dissertation. Often times, I would see a very diverse class with students from different backgrounds, but deep down (e.g. during peer reviews), there was always this barrier keeping them from truly connecting with one another, let alone appreciating each other. This invisible barrier made a lot of international students feel like guests on this campus rather than that they belonged.

Meanwhile, I interviewed the very first group of the Husky Presidential Ambassadors who just returned from Beijing for a mission to connect with incoming Chinese international students. From them, I found a strong desire to connect with international students and to gain cultural competency. It turns out, the Husky Presidential Ambassadors students were also desperate for a platform to encourage deep cultural exchange. As a matter of fact, they became the pioneers for this program and named it Unite UW.

From there, Unite UW has evolved into today’s equal partnership program to provide a mutually-enriching global experience in a local setting.  Through cultural exchange and bonding activities, domestic students gain different worldviews and enhance cultural competencies on one hand, while on the other hand, international students are introduced to American culture and feel valued and empowered to truly take ownership of their academic and social life here at the UW.

Unite UW offers a variety of workshops and events that encourage cultural exchange, leadership building, resource sharing, and bonding. For example, as a tradition, Unite UW alumni make dumplings together to celebrate Lunar New Year. During the second week of the quarter, we take the entire cohort of 90 students (half domestic and half international) to UW’s Pack Forest Conference Center for a two-night weekend retreat. Besides various bonding activities, students spend Saturday engaged in Roundtable, a sharing circle where each student shares their personal stories and experiences that have shaped who they are.

According to student reflections, Roundtable has created “magic” moments when everyone is able to let their guard down and open up to each other. Roundtable creates a judgement-free space that blurs the divide between domestic and international students, as one student stated: “When we had that sharing circle at the weekend retreat I realized that despite our cultural differences, we were all united and similar in some way.”

My advice is to be vulnerable and to really listen! Having listened to more than 20 quarters or hundreds of roundtable stories, I have learned that vulnerability is strength, not weakness.

Our students have translated this for us beautifully:  At the Unite UW retreat, they often spend the entire Friday night learning everyone’s names. We are talking about 90+ students who were strangers a week prior. It can be very uncomfortable to forget or mispronounce some names, especially names from different cultures, let alone building connections with one another. But they keep on trying and learning throughout the retreat: listening to others’ stories, asking questions about their cultures and families, or sharing comments or connecting moments on sticky notes.

I am most proud of the good values that Unite UW has passed onto students: to listen, to understand, to include, to embrace, to support, and to love.

Having experienced Unite UW, students have seen the possibility of building strong bonds over differences. In other words, they don’t have to hide their true identities or alter themselves in order to fit in! Good friends or good partners embrace their differences and appreciate who they are. They have also become ambassadors of cultural diversity and inclusion, so wherever they go, they have a sense of responsibility to create a more connected and inclusive world.

Lastly, they have all learned about the importance of taking care of themselves and of looking out for others, by building a support system for themselves wherever they go and by making efforts to become part of others’ support system.

For the next few years, I will continue focusing on building a support system for UW’s international students. I did not feel that I had one when I was an international graduate student at the UW many years ago, so I made a promise to myself: I would build one if I ever had the opportunity. CIRCLE afforded me that opportunity, so I am very grateful. I am really looking forward to the day when this support system takes a good shape.