By Davi Jacobs
At the University of Maryland, students aren’t just studying global public health—they’re packing their bags to practice it.
Through Public Health Beyond Borders, students lead the mission to improve health equity in Peru, India, Sierra Leone, Kenya, Ethiopia and locally in Prince George’s County.
PHBB is a student-run UMD club that aims to address health disparities in partnering communities.
Elisabeth Maring, a family science professor at UMD, has watched PHBB evolve since the beginning.
In 2012, she traveled with two graduate students to Peru to address water chlorination along with Engineering Without Borders, a nonprofit organization that partners with disadvantaged communities to improve the quality of life through engineering projects.
Over time, undergraduate students in the Global Public Health Scholars program became interested in starting a public health-oriented organization.
“I feel like all I did was just share the opportunity to get involved,” Maring said. “The students really brought it to life.”
Today, PHBB operates through five teams—each focused on a different partner community.
Throughout the semester, members collaborate virtually with local leaders, sending out questionnaires to identify the most pressing health challenges. Based on those insights, students design targeted interventions, from nutrition education to menstrual hygiene workshops, often building on data collected in previous visits.
“Even before we try to solve the issue, we take a really long time to understand the issue itself,” vice president of PHBB and public health science major senior Om Desai said. “We’re going out to these communities that have different backgrounds, morals and values, and we get to know the community before we try to teach anything.”
Other student members contribute their own skills to the activities.
“I’m always looking for things to practice my Spanish skills,” member and senior public health science major and Spanish minor Noa Blumenthal said. “In the Peru community, they all speak Spanish, so that was a great opportunity for me to actually use Spanish in a real-life context.”
Once a year—during winter or summer breaks—the teams travel to their partner sites to implement their projects in person. The local team goes out into the community monthly.
The hands-on work is supported in part by student-led fundraising, with each team running year-long initiatives to sustain their efforts. The India team, for example, holds an annual samosa sale on campus to fund educational materials for their workshops.
For co-president and senior public health science and French major Adriana Koilpillai, PHBB is a valuable opportunity.
“It’s a diamond in the rough. There are a lot of clubs that you can travel with, but you have to pay a lot of money, and they give you all the materials,” Koilpillai said. “With PHBB, you’re creating a whole intervention from scratch yourself. It’s a very authentic experience as to what the world of public health is like.”
For Maring, PHBB’s impact goes beyond the communities it serves and is about shaping the next generation of global health leaders.
“I see how students stretch beyond what they’re used to, and yet have these incredible relationships that they develop in the places where we have our projects,” she said. “What I want them to get out of it is building these relationships, having these experiences, and expanding whatever they expect from their careers.”
The memories that members make keep them coming back every semester.
“Once you get involved, you stay involved,” co-president and junior public health science and information systems major Mahika Vedire said. “So many of the people that I know have been in this club for years.”
That dedication is something Desai sees regularly among his peers.
“It’s an incredible group of team members,” he said. “They’ll put everything down and come out and work toward bettering a community they may not have any ties to. I think that’s incredibly selfless.”
Featured Image: Students at Central Hindu Girls School in Varanasi, India, practiced proper CPR form after a first-aid educational workshop delivered by PHBB India Project Team members in January 2025. Photo courtesy of Adriana Koilpillai.