Past Education Abroad Trips

Summer 2018

Quito, Ecuador

Students worked on public health projects in collaboration with professors and students from the University of San Francisco de Quito. Projects covered a wide range of activities, including water quality and nutrition challenges in indigenous communities, maternal and child health, and infectious disease epidemiology. Some of the students even worked on projects in the Galapagos Islands! Dr. David Washburn, an assistant professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management, led this study abroad program.

December 2019

Costa Rica

Students traveled to Costa Rica to learn about the country and its national health care system. Morning field trips included visits to a rural health post, an indigenous territory, a border health post for migrant workers from Panama, and a coffee farm daycare for the children of migrant workers. Students met with local experts during each trip, and participated each afternoon in active-learning sessions. Students also experienced the ecosystems that Costa Rica is famous for, including the beaches near Jaco and Manuel Antonio, the Carara National Park, the Tarcoles River “Crocodile Bridge”, the Las Cruces Biological Station, and the higher-elevation cloud forests near the Zona de los Santos. This study abroad program was led by Dr. Sherry Lin (Department of Health Policy and Management) and Dr. Leslie Cizmas (Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, and a former Peace Corps volunteer in Costa Rica).