Grace Trompeter

Grace Trompeter is currently a fourth-year medical student at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo, NY, and plans to pursue a residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology following graduation. Prior to medical school Grace completed her MSPH at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health with a focus in international health and nutrition. As part of her Master’s practicum research, Grace explored the interaction between asthma and obesity among adolescents in Lima, Peru. She is excited to return to Peru as a Kean Fellow to participate in an investigation of novel diagnostic techniques for congenital infections. Grace aspires to be a physician researcher who works at the intersection of clinical medicine and public health to tackle disparities in healthcare access for women and girls globally. 
 

Project: "Enhancing Identification of Sublinical Congenital Toxoplasmosis in Neonates in Lima, Peru"
8/15/2018 - 12/15/2018
Peru

 

What does the Kean Fellowship mean to you?
The Kean Fellowship provides me the incredible opportunity to pursue research in global health in a way I wouldn't otherwise have in medical school. This fellowship will allow me to commit significant, uninterrupted time to a longitudinal research project. This opportunity offers the hands-on training I seek and the ability to work on a successful and collaborative team under the mentorship of true leaders in global health. I am thrilled to rejoin such an amazing team of researchers at Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia as we work together to improve the detection of congenital infections among mothers and babies in Lima, Peru.

What do you anticipate learning?
I am excited to combine my experiences in clinical medicine and public health research and apply them to a long-term research project that I will see from conception and execution through data collection and later data analysis. I hope to learn more about the practice of strong clinical research and utilize and improve upon current research skills. Through participating in this research project I hope to learn more about how the ways I can combine my interests in clinical medicine and global health to shape my career path. In terms of my specific project, I hope to learn more about the true burden of congenital infections in Lima, Peru, and through our investigation contribute to the understanding of the best way to identify these infections early on.

What interests you about tropical medicine and what problems are you interested in solving?
There is so much more to learn and investigate in the field of tropical medicine! Perhaps more so than in other parts of the world, the interaction between humans and the natural environment in which they live is so vital to understanding issues in tropical medicine. I have always been interested in barriers to accessing healthcare and I'm interested in how we can identify and address the social and environmental barriers within the realm of tropical medicine in order to improve health outcomes in resource-limited communities. The project I have proposed to work on in Lima is just the first step in moving toward improved detection of congenital infections through the development of simple, affordable diagnostic testing.