This past week, UF sent five of its finest to Emory University to compete in the 2018 International Emory Global Health Case Competition. Taking place over the course of three days, the participating teams were challenged to contend with a "disastrous outbreak of coronavirus at the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar". As per the intention of the competition to “Connect[ing] Students from Diverse Fields to Address a Global Challenge”, UF students, Hannah Lyons, Leanne Dumeny, Cheyenne Cheng, Veronica Richards, and Arpan Parekh had to call upon their respective fields of study, as well as all the cunning and critical thinking available to them to address the unique challenges of the case. The students are, respectively, a History and Microbiology double major, an MD/PhD student in Genetics and Genomics, an MPH-soon-to-be-PhD in Epidemiology student, and an Economics major.
The students had already succeeded as team in January when they won 1st place at the UF Global Health Case Competition, receiving the nomination to represent UF at Emory. The competition took place over the course of a week, with the case being released to the team on Saturday, March 10th, and their presentation being due on Saturday, March 17th. The team was able to qualify for semifinals by constructing an elaborate disaster response communications network, branded face masks to prevent spread of the virus, and establishing an initiative in which the "citizens of Qatar" were unified; promoting social justice as well as group awareness of the outbreak. Ultimately, the team placed 4th out of 24 participating schools, defeating universities such as Northwestern University, Brown University, the University of Pennsylvania, Washington University in St. Louis, Vanderbilt University, and Cornell University – the first time a UF team has placed in the history of the competition. The students mentioned their preparation in multidisciplinary settings and subjects, and a grounding in a liberal arts education at UF allowed them to perform at the level that they did.