In 2023, the Global Health Design Initiative (GHDI) will be directed by Dr. Kathleen Sienko and Dr. Julia Kramer. GHDI is supported by two Graduate Student Program Managers, Grace Burleson and Lucy Spicher. This year, the GHDI program plans to support student cohorts in Ghana and Malawi, conducting clinical needs assessments with themes in Obstetrics and Gynecology, Emergency Medicine, Surgery, Orthopedics, and/or Rehabilitation.

Dr. Kathleen Sienko

Dr. Kathleen Sienko is an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Mechanical Engineering. She founded GHDI in 2008 and has led approximately 150 undergraduate and graduate students in conducting clinical observations at hospitals in Ghana, Ethiopia, Nicaragua, Kenya, and China. Under Dr. Sienko’s leadership, students have identified and defined thousands of clinical needs, and developed successful medical devices like a blood salvage device for maternal hemorrhaging (Ghana), traditional adult male circumcision device (Uganda), and subcutaneous contraceptive insertion device (Ethiopia). For Dr. Sienko, GHDI is about training a new generation of engineers to collaborate with stakeholders to define problems and develop and implement solutions to address essential health care challenges. GHDI was awarded the ASME Engineering Education Donald N. Zwiep Innovation in Education Award in 2018.

Dr. Julia Kramer

Dr. Julia Kramer is an Incoming Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering (Fall 2023). Dr. Kramer is a graduate of the University of Michigan and participated in GHDI as an undergraduate student. She was a member of the 2013 cohort in Ghana where she and her team conducted a clinical needs assessment at Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital and Korle Bu Teaching Hospital. After her experience with GHDI, Dr. Kramer went on to pursue a masters in public health and a PhD in mechanical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, where she co-founded two organizations (Visualize and the Reflex Design Collective) that support social justice and promote equity through design. After her PhD, Dr. Kramer was appointed Director of Human-Centered Design for the Innovations for Choice and Autonomy project at the University of California, San Francisco before returning home to the University of Michigan. 

Grace Burleson

Grace Burleson is a PhD-candidate in Design Science at the University of Michigan where she investigates socially-engaged design methodologies to better incorporate the complex social, political, and economic systems in which engineered solutions are situated. She has supported GHDI as a graduate program manager since 2022 and was awarded the Papadopoulos Family Global Health Design Graduate Research Award in 2022. She has eight years of experience in engineering in social impact and global development applications, including five years as an ASME Engineering for Change Fellow. In 2019, she co-founded the Mbale Center for Innovation and Design in eastern Uganda, which empowers and equips communities to design and test solutions to challenges related to clean water, energy, reforestation, and livelihood development. She holds a dual-M.S. in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Anthropology and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Oregon State University.

Lucy Spicher

Lucy Spicher is a PhD Candidate in Mechanical Engineering. Her first experience in global health design was through the Humanitarian Engineering and Social Entrepreneurship program at Penn State University. As an undergraduate research assistant, Lucy worked with local occupational therapists in Kisumu, Kenya to co-create 3D printed tools for doctors and patients. Through this experience, she supported a start-up company called Kijenzi, a local, Kenyan-based medical device manufacturer that uses 3D printing to localize and distribute manufacturing of previously inaccessible tools. Lucy has also worked as a Mechanical Engineering Intern for Key Tech Inc., a product design and development company that uses novel technologies to innovate new medical, industrial, and consumer products. At the University of Michigan, Lucy is conducting research on the development of a continuous fetal monitoring device and exploring the contextual factors and strategies that engineering designers use when developing new technologies.