May 6, 2026

Initiative announces summer 2026 cohort of Applied Research Fellows

The Population Health Initiative announced the selection of three graduate students and two undergraduate students as the 2026 cohort of the Applied Research Fellowship program.

Launched in 2019, the Applied Research Fellowship was created – and continues to be run – in partnership with the University of Washington’s Center for Studies in Demography & Ecology. The program’s goal is to offer students data analysis, critical thinking and team science skills that will help them solve complex population health challenges on their way to becoming future leaders in the field.

The cohort of students selected for this year’s fellowship program are:

Name	Degree Program	School
Arielle Weaver	Public Policy & Management	Evans School of Public Policy & Governance
Betsy Broaddus	Communication	College of Arts & Sciences
Samantha Consiglio	Urban Design & Planning	College of Built Environments
Suler Lu	Public Health-Global Health and Environmental Studies	School of Public Health
Mya Vo	Media & Communications and Data Visualization	Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences (Bothell)

The Summer 2026 Applied Research Fellowship Program will partner with stakeholders at the City of Seattle to research strengths and future recommendations that support children and their families. The team will first explore how other cities quantify child-friendliness and monitor progress. They will combine descriptive and spatial data analysis to explore the volume and location of important daily amenities necessary for those with children — child care facilities, transportation access, schools, laundromats and so forth — with qualitative data collection via interviews with Seattle’s constituents to better understand the needs of children and their caregivers. These two avenues of research will result in recommendations for areas of improvement in Seattle’s goal of being a child-friendly city and ways child-friendliness can be monitored as time goes on.

The opportunity for students to work on a real-world, client-driven project as part of a multidisciplinary team will benefit their understanding of how to integrate their disciplinary expertise into a team-oriented, problem-solving approach that develops interdisciplinary solutions to population health challenges.

Learn more about this fellowship program by visiting its web page.