Education
The Science of Global Health: What’s Next
International health research at UCSF got its start in the late 1980s, with a small AIDS program in Uganda. A quarter-century later, it is a global research enterprise, with 600 UCSF investigators working in 190 countries.
UCSF’s Global Health Sciences now embraces all that the University has to offer: basic science, social science and clinical care, along with education and emerging areas that incorporate policy and diplomacy.
This month, Global Health Sciences celebrates the 10-year anniversary since its founding as a formal program with two major events: the opening of Mission Hall, where global health faculty will be gathered under one roof for the first time, and an international symposium on global health, featuring many of the giants in the field.
The goal of the conference is to explore what is coming next in global health, so that scientific efforts are targeted in the best way.
“As an academic health sciences university, UCSF plays a critical role in helping to set the global health agenda,” said Jaime Sepulveda, MD, DSc, MPH, executive director of Global Health Sciences. “That’s what we’re doing with this symposium and with our day-to-day work.”
The symposium agenda sprang, in part, out of the recent Science special issue on global health. Sepulveda and UCSF Global Health Sciences were key partners in developing the issue, which includes a perspective from Sepulveda on the state of global health in 2014.
“UCSF has always been science-driven,” Sepulveda said. “That’s why our program is called Global Health Sciences. It’s an indication that we aim to bring the same rigor to this new field of knowledge that we have to all of the University’s other endeavors.”
UCSF scientists are working on major killers, like AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, as well as lesser-known threats, like dengue, Chagas’ disease and River Blindness.
They are studying how programs work – and why some work better in some places than others. And they are asking the tough questions about how to build health systems in countries that are only now becoming economically strong enough to support them.
Educators are training students at UCSF for global careers and helping clinicians around the world with massive online open enrollment courses, while researchers are mentoring young scientists abroad on research projects and training health workers through large community-based trials.
UCSF faculty are also contributing to major policy debates. Several played key roles in the Lancet Commission on Investing in Health, which laid out a 20-year plan to increase the amount spent on health in poor countries and improve access to care, while calling on the global community to expand research and development for diseases that disproportionately affect poor countries. Together, these efforts could save 10 million lives.
Most recently, Sepulveda and other UCSF faculty have added their voices to the debate over the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals for 2030 by urging that the sole health goal now planned for inclusion be practical, concrete and include measurable targets, such as a 40 percent reduction in premature mortality.
Here are some of the faculty members that are leading the way at UCSF Global Health Sciences:
Eric Goosby, MD, is a pioneer of global HIV care. He was President Obama’s Global AIDS Coordinator and head of PEPFAR from 2009 to 2014 and has spent many years working on the problem of how to deliver health care in developing countries with weak health systems.
Dr. Eric Goosby
Goosby’s overarching goal is to make sure that the billions of dollars in foreign aid and the investments that developing nations are increasingly ma
king for themselves truly strengthen their health systems and create the capacity to improve people’s health over the long term.
Haile T. Debas
Haile Debas, MD, is a former chancellor, dean of the School of Medicine and chair of surgery at UCSF. He was the founding executive director of UCSF Global Health Sciences. He is recognized internationally for his contributions to academic medicine and is widely consulted on issues associated with global health.
Debas, who is from Eritrea and went to college in Ethiopia, would like to see a collective effort by the basic science community in the United States to revitalize science education and research in sub-Saharan African universities, which has degraded after years of disinvestment.
Education
As Progressive Democrats Celebrate ‘Blue Tsunami,’ Oakland Counts Victories
As national Democrats celebrate a significant shift in the midterm elections, local leaders in Oakland are tracking early results from the Alameda County Registrar of Voters. While Mayor Barbara Lee and several City Council incumbents have secured decisive victories, attention remains fixed on high-stakes school board contests. Progressive candidates currently face strong challenges from opponents backed by corporate funding and local political organizations. With many ballots still uncounted, the final composition of the board and several regional transit measures remain in the balance. Read more.
Concerns remain over school board races as ‘moderates’ lead progressives
The Alameda County Registrar of Voters has released the first round of election results, though many ballots remain uncounted and results are still incomplete.
Nationally, Democrats, liberals and progressives celebrated Tuesday evening as President Donald Trump was dealt a devastating blow in the midterm election. The Republican Party lost control of the Senate and the House as “Maga” candidates were swept away not just by a ‘blue wave,’ but a ‘blue tsunami.’
In Oakland, incumbent Mayor Barbara Lee, who served two years and ran for a full four-year term, won decisively.
A proposal backed by Lee, Measure EE, also won. The Charter amendment will create a strong mayor system of government while providing the City Council with new checks and balances on mayoral power.
District 2 Councilmember Charlene Wang is leading with 65.62% of the vote. Opponent Nate Adams trails with 34.38%.
District 4 Councilmember Janani Ramachandran, ran unopposed for reelection, receiving 14,029 votes.
District 6 Councilmember Kevin Jenkins bested opponent Nancy Sidebotham and District 2’s Charlene Wang also won reelection.
City Auditor Michael Houston is running unopposed for reelection and won 60,773 votes.
Progressive school board members, Jennifer Brouhard (D2) and Valarie Bachelor (D6), supported by teachers and school activists, face serious challenges from candidates backed by pro-corporate funders and the political organization, Empower Oakland.
Arielle Fleisher leads Brouhard 53.49% to 46.51%.
In District 6 with three contending candidates, Alexandra Williams leads with 38.06% of the vote. Incumbent Bachelor has 36.89%, and Leana Powell is trailing with 25.04%.
In District 4, incumbent Mike Hutchinson is narrowly leading a field of three candidates. He received 40.87% of the vote, while Kathryn Camp has 39.92%, and Sylvia Pfeiffer Williams has 19.21%.
In the races for AC Transit Board, Director Joel Young (Ward 3) leads with 53.11% of the vote, Sarah Syed (Ward 4) is ahead with 78.37% of the vote, and Murphy McCalley (Ward 5) leads with 63.07%.
Regional Transit Measure RTM, which would increase sales taxes in five Bay Area counties to shore up BART and other regional transit, was leading in five counties by a combined 62% of the vote.
Commentary
COMMENTARY: Oakland’s Black Students Have Gained Ground: We Shouldn’t Stop Now
New state data reveals that Black students in the Oakland Unified School District are making academic gains in reading and math at rates significantly faster than their peers statewide. These improvements follow a 2023 decision by board leadership to cancel school closures and instead invest in the Black Thriving Community Schools program. While the district continues to address budget challenges, proponents argue that maintaining these targeted resources is essential to narrowing long-standing achievement gaps. Read more about the specific policies driving these results.
Oakland’s Black students are making faster gains in reading and math than Black students statewide, according to state data released Oct. 15.
Those gains followed decisions by school board President Jennifer Brouhard and Vice President Valarie Bachelor to keep schools open, invest in Black students and support teachers.
Since 2023, Black students in Oakland Unified School District have gained about 31 points in English and math on the California School Dashboard — roughly three times the statewide English gain and more than twice the math gain. Our students still trail their statewide peers, but they have narrowed that gap by about a third.
In 2022, the previous board voted to close or reduce grades at 11 schools, mostly serving Black and Brown families. A state civil rights investigation later found the plan would have unlawfully discriminated against Black, low-income and disabled students. Brouhard and Bachelor opposed those closures and, after winning election, voted to cancel remaining plans in January 2023.
The board then expanded support through Black Thriving Community Schools, providing additional resources where Black enrollment exceeds 40%, and funded teachers dedicated to Black students and families. Its reparations policy requires schools to develop plans for Black student achievement.
Meanwhile, the district reduced a $100 million budget shortfall to about $30 million without closing schools, cut central office positions and approved its first balanced budget in 22 years. More than 99% of teaching positions were filled when this school year began.
These investments must grow. Black Thriving Community Schools still reach only some students who need them. Every Oakland child deserves a safe, racially just neighborhood school staffed by qualified teachers who can afford to stay.
The opposing slate argues closures should remain an option to address budget pressures. But a Stanford study found closures do not improve district finances because departing families take student funding with them. Other research links closures to lower college attendance and adult earnings. Majority-Black schools nationally are more than three times as likely to close.
Oakland knows the consequences. There is another path. Brouhard and Bachelor have begun moving Oakland in that direction, protecting classroom investments while confronting financial pressures.
Progress deserves continued public support. We cannot afford to reverse course.
About the Author
Walter Riley is a civil rights attorney and longtime community organizer in Oakland.
Commentary
OPINION: OUSD Kids Are Eager to Learn. Our Board Is Holding Them Back
Oakland Unified School District students are facing a literacy crisis, with fewer than one in three reading at grade level. Despite receiving significant per-pupil funding, the district is struggling with what county officials describe as a decision-making problem rather than a lack of revenue. Oakland Parents for Quality Education and the local NAACP are now sounding the alarm over fiscal instability, alleging that board leadership has failed to identify necessary budget cuts while ignoring warnings from school principals. To understand how these leadership decisions are impacting campus resources and student equity, read more.
Oakland Unified students are falling behind: fewer than 1 in 3 read at grade level, and the numbers are worse for Black and Latino students. This is happening in a district that has received more per student than even the highest-funded states. As Alameda County Superintendent of Schools Alysse Castro has said, “OUSD’s biggest problem isn’t a revenue problem. It’s a decision-making problem.”
That is why Grace Park-Bradbury and I, two OUSD parents, started Oakland Parents for Quality Education, the ParentPAC. We believe our kids deserve a school board that faces hard decisions honestly. This board has not.
The county has warned them repeatedly. Earlier this year Castro said the new teachers’ contract “endangers” the district’s fiscal stability. That wasn’t because of the raises, but because the district was counting on cuts it had not identified.
Days later the board passed a budget that assumed $30 million in still-unnamed reductions. Board President Jennifer Brouhard and Vice President Valarie Bachelor voted yes. Director Mike Hutchinson voted no. The plan to name those cuts isn’t scheduled until mid-December, after the election.
The Oakland NAACP called for public forums and honest answers about the management of public funds. This fall Castro approved the budget only conditionally, noting that “a budget can be balanced but not be good for kids.”
Principals have spoken out as well. In January, 30 school leaders wrote that asking schools to do more with less “erodes the dignity of our profession” and “unconscionably compromises the quality of education our students receive.”
In April, 60 principals raised concerns that “have diminished our confidence in our current leadership,” warning that district decisions had produced “a structural deficit and cash-strapped schools.”
In June, all 15 high school principals objected to using voter-approved Measure N and H reserves for expenses already in the budget. The district did it anyway. The measures’ citizen oversight commission has demanded the money back. Auditors found the board had the legal authority, but as Castro observed, legality does not settle whether it was what voters thought they were approving.
Opponents claim we want to close schools. Our candidates do not all agree on consolidation. Hutchinson has fought closures for years, yet he also wrote the 3Rs proposal examining how many schools the district should operate.
What our candidates share is a willingness to weigh every option openly. This board told the superintendent not to even consider consolidation, and every school is being cut instead. As principals representing two-thirds of OUSD schools wrote, “the gradual starvation of our schools is also an equity issue.” Closures disrupt families, especially in Black and Brown neighborhoods. So does starving every campus.
You may have seen ads calling us a front for out-of-town billionaires. Every contribution is publicly reported, and 140 Oakland families have given. The people sounding the alarm are principals, citizen commissioners, the county superintendent, and the NAACP. None of them are billionaires. They are the people who see our schools up close.
Oakland schools are staffed by excellent principals and teachers. Our kids are like kids everywhere: eager to learn if given a real chance. They are being held back by a board that will not make hard choices.
In District 2, vote for Arielle Fleisher. In District 4, rank Kathryn Camp and Mike Hutchinson first and second. In District 6, rank Alexandra Williams and LeAna Powell first and second. Leave your third choice blank.
Vote like our children’s future depends on it. Because it does.
Edmund Chun co-founded Oakland Parents for Quality Education and is an OUSD parent.
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