The LAGHC 2019 planning team consists of 23 students and 4 faculty and staff from UCLA (David Geffen School of Medicine, Fielding School of Public Health, and Undergraduate Campus), USC (Keck School of Medicine, Global Health Institute, and Department of Clinical Psychology), and UCR.
Samuel Lewis
M.D. Candidate at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
Sam is a first-year medical student at the David Geffen School of Medicine originally from Albany, New York. He completed his undergraduate studies in biology at Williams College. He subsequently spent one year working at a pediatric hospital in northern Laos as a Luce Scholar, where he was involved in program implementation, monitoring, and evaluation. Prior to coming to UCLA, Sam completed a MPhil in Epidemiology from the University of Cambridge. His research focused on retention in care and virologic outcomes among HIV patients at the Infectious Diseases Institute in Kampala, Uganda. He has also been involved in research on rural finance in Burkina Faso, as well as pediatric epilepsy care research domestically. His interests lie at the intersection of policy, economics, and global health, with an eye towards health systems strengthening and capacity building.
Carolyn Smullin
M.D. Candidate at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
Carolyn Smullin is a first-year medical student at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. She received her Bachelor’s of Science in Molecular Toxicology from UC Berkeley. As an undergraduate, she published on the role of retinol dehydrogenase in embryonic development and consequential metabolic syndrome. She went on to research HIV therapeutic options at UCSF. Understanding that cost, capacity, and compliance exist as major barriers to treatment, Carolyn was interested in exploring alternative therapeutic approaches to HIV through a study of the biological basis of HIV-specific CD8+ T cell exhaustion. Carolyn’s interest in the social determinants of health and health disparities arose when she experienced the realities of being a high-need patient in rural Northern California. Inspired by her and other’s experiences, Carolyn co-founded and now serves as the Vice President of the nonprofit organization The Happy Cart Project, Inc., which serves to fill the gaps in pediatric inpatient care by providing creative activities to patients that foster self-reflection and expression. Carolyn is passionate about addressing local and global disparities in healthcare access and quality as a pervasive human rights violation. She gives particular attention to the issues of reproductive, maternal, and neonatal/early child health.
Logistics Committee
Kwang Kim (Lead Chair)
MD/MBA Candidate at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
Kwang is a fourth year student in the MD/MBA program at the David Geffen School of Medicine and the Anderson School of Management at UCLA. His main interests are global health medicine, healthcare innovation and entrepreneurship. As an undergraduate at Northwestern University, Kwang studied neurobiology and global health spending a semester at Beijing University through a global immersion program. He studied the impact of public health initiatives on communicable diseases at the CDC and surgical training interventions through China's Ministry of Health. Since beginning his medical studies at UCLA, Kwang served as the medical coordinator for the Mobile Clinic Project providing street-side primary care to the homeless population of Los Angeles. His most recent project involves integrating electronic health records into the continuum of care. His commitment to improving healthcare efficiency and outcomes has led him to pursue a business degree with a focus on healthcare management, strategy and operations with the hopes of incentivizing quality healthcare in low resource global communities. Kwang spends his free time engaging in medical mission trips to Uganda, Mexico, and Haiti through the Global Medical Mission Alliance and other non-profit organizations.
Xiaomeng Deng (Mona)
M.D. Candidate at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
Mona is a second-year medical student at the David Geffen School of Medicine who was born and raised in Beijing, China. She went to Trinity College (Hartford, CT) for undergraduate study in Biology and spent a semester in Copenhagen completing a Medical Practice and Policy Program, where she conducted a project comparing the Danish healthcare system with that of the US. She also started a non-profit public health science education platform on WeChat, a popular social media app. She likes to think about health issues in a global context no matter which specialty they fall in. The summer after her first year in medical school, Mona participated in a global health research project on HIV/STD in MSM in Hanoi, Vietnam; after returning to the US, she has been conducting another research project on antimicrobial resistance in Neisseria Gonorrhea worldwide.
Breanna Buhay
B.S. Candidate at the Department of Physiological Sciences at UCLA
Breanna is currently a third year undergraduate student at UCLA majoring in Physiological Sciences with a focus towards medicine. Since entering UCLA, she has been an active member of Alpha Epsilon Delta, a pre-health honor society, through which was gained her first exposure in global health after attending a clinic trip to Tanzania. Since then, she’s attended several clinic trips to Mexico and recently Vietnam and has realized the truth behind "voluntourism". During her time at UCLA, she has become a regular volunteer at Venice Family Clinic, a West LA hospital that provides healthcare to low-income and homeless families. She is also current member of UCLA’s flying Samaritans, a campus organization improving access to healthcare for communities in Baja California, Mexico. Over the years the Flying Samaritans grew to become an international organization comprising of more than 1500 members in ten chapters and serving 19 clinics in various communities of Mexico. She is excited to help create an environment where people can learn about global health through wider and gain the knowledge they need to transform their passions into actions.
Judith Gonzalez
B.S. Candidate at the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at UCLA
Judith Gonzalez is a fourth year undergraduate at UCLA majoring in Biology and minoring in Spanish. Growing up as a first-generation student and a woman of color in higher education has helped her create her focus towards public and global health. She is passionate about dismantling the social determinants of health that affect populations both locally and abroad. In her time at UCLA, she has become increasingly involved in global health projects that allow her to put her best efforts into creating equal access to care for underserved populations. As a research associate for Global Cancer Care Initiatives at the UCLA Center for World Health, she has had the opportunity to increase accessibility to care through cancer care education in Latin American countries. She is a member of the International Relations team for F.I.S.H. (Fellowship for International Service and Health), an entirely student-run nonprofit service organization based at UCLA. By collaborating with local and global communities, F.I.S.H. provides sustainable health and educational services to the area they serve in Maclovio Rojas, México. More recently, she began her position as Internal Relations officer for the Global Health Coalition at UCLA. Here, she hopes to introduce other undergraduate students to global health issues combating our world. She hopes that all of her experiences will help her further understand how to combat inequities in the healthcare field and aid her in her medical career.
Arsal Zaheer
B.A. Candidate at the Department of Economics at UCLA
Arsal is a third Year Economics major and Public Health minor at UCLA. His academic interests pertain to the interplay between economics, education, and health outcomes in both local and global environments. He currently serves as a Training Director for the UCLA based nonprofit organization F.I.S.H. (Fellowship for International Service and Health,) which collaborates with the community of Maclovio Rojas, Mexico to provide sustainable service tailored to resident needs. Arsal also conducts patient based assessments concerning quality of care provided by Internal and General Medicine residents at the Ronald Reagan Medical Center. Through his undergraduate experiences, he has become a major advocate of analyzing health barriers and disparities through a structural and cultural lens. Upon graduation, Arsal hopes to work in healthcare advocacy, bridging the gap between politics and healthcare on a national scale.
Public Relations Committee
Malia Skjefte (Lead Chair)
B.S. Candidate at the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at UCLA
Malia Skjefte is a fourth year undergraduate student at UCLA majoring in Biology with a minor in Spanish. Her interest in global health sparked after spending a summer volunteering in Los Santos, Costa Rica where she worked on sustainable coffee farming projects and opened her eyes to the detrimental effects of global warming. She is a current volunteer for UCLA’s Fellowship for International Service and Health (FISH), which has been serving the community of Maclovio Rojas, Mexico for the past 12 years through providing basic health screenings and English lessons. She is also a caseworker for the UCLA Mobile Clinic Project and a supervisor for Bruin Shelter, the nation’s first student run homeless shelter, through which she is able to combat the stigma surrounding homelessness on both a campus and community level. This last summer, Malia worked as a research assistant at the Barcelona Institute of Global Health (ISGlobal) where she assisted in malaria immunology projects that served to create more effective vaccines. Malia currently works for the UCLA Department of Medicine Quality where she partners with medical students and physicians on preventative care projects within the UCLA medical system. With a dual passion for healthcare and environmental advocacy, Malia plans to pursue her M.D. with the hopes of focusing on neglected tropical diseases that have been heightened by the effects of climate change.
Raffi Djenderedjian
Pre-Medical Post-Baccalaureate Student at LMU
Raffi is a pre-medical post-baccalaureate student at Loyola Marymount University, working toward applying to medical schools. In 2015 he graduated from UCLA with a B.A. in English. As an English major, he gained a love for world cultures that developed into an appreciation for development economics. As a volunteer at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, itself a facility with a multinational staff and patient population, he has been inspired by the global health work of the hospital’s emergency medicine physicians. Raffi is now a volunteer at the UCLA Center for World Health. His major interest in global health concerns indigenous populations in the United States; he hopes to improve health outcomes by understanding the links between culture, policy, and disease.
Karen Opara
M.D. Candidate at the Keck School of Medicine of USC
Karen is a second-year medical student at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. Prior to medical school, Karen earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Physiological Science at UCLA, and her Master of Science degree in Global Medicine at Keck. As a first generation Nigerian American, Karen’s interests in global health began with the personal stories and lived experiences of her family members. She has had the opportunity to do medical missionary work in Sampa, Ghana with Team Africa Mission International. There, she was exposed to the realities of rural healthcare delivery, and the factors that influence health and disease in resource poor settings. Through her master’s degree program, she was awarded the Dhablania and Kim Family Global Medicine Fellowship. As a fellow, she received funding to travel to Nigeria to visit the National Hospital, and learn about the country’s healthcare delivery in urban and rural settings. Now a medical student, Karen is currently developing a research project that will examine the association between common menstrual hygiene practices and pelvic inflammatory disease in rural Uganda. Karen’s interests are in reproductive and women’s health, with a focus in low resource settings in Sub-Saharan Africa. Karen hopes to eventually return to her home country as a physician and improve the health of Nigerians.
Noah Ghossein
MD Candidate at UC Riverside School of Medicine
Noah is a third-year medical student at UC Riverside with strong interests in Migration and Refugee Health, Healthcare Policy and Global Health. After his first year of medical school, he interned for the World Health Organization in the Department of Refugee and Migrant Health. During this time, he researched how Social Determinants of Health affect migrant access to foreign healthcare systems and compiled information on how successful interventions improved access to healthcare opportunities. Additionally, he participated in the Duke Global Policy program as a Global Health fellow in Geneva Swizterland, where he received both an academic and experiential perspective on how intergovernmental institutions, public-private partnerships, and non-governmental organizations shape global health policy. Noah is a regular volunteer with the Healing Hearts Across Boarders organization which runs multiple free health clinics in Tijuana, Mexico. Noah’s interest in Global Health stems from his time living in Lebanon and studying abroad in Amman, Jordan.
Kiana Charles
B.S Candidate at the Department of Human Biology and Society at UCLA
Kiana is a third year undergraduate student at UCLA majoring in Human Biology and Society. Her passion for global health stems from her background as a first generation student and has been enriched through her involvement with F.I.S.H ( Fellowship for International Service and Health) at UCLA. F.I.S.H is a student-run global health organization whose mission is to provide sustainable health services to the community of Maclovio Rojas, Mexico. In addition to this, she often volunteers at the Greater West Hollywood Food Coalition which serves the homeless population in Hollywood, California. Kiana is interested in both understanding and combating the healthcare inequities faced by underserved populations both in the United States and abroad. Upon graduation, she aspires to pursue a career in medicine working with disadvantaged communities.
Speakers Committee
Patrick Sur (Lead Chair)
M.D. Candidate at the UCR School of Medicine
Patrick J. Sur is a first-year medical student at the University of California Riverside School of Medicine interested in nutrition epidemiology especially the development of novel measurement strategies in low-resource settings. Before beginning medical school, he completed a global health research fellowship with the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington. During his time there, he worked on the Global Burden of Disease project, quantifying how changes in dietary consumption and physical activity have led to the disease landscape that exists today around the world. As part of his MPH, he worked in Kathmandu, gathering and analyzing data for a national representative survey commissioned to inform future coverage of their expanding national health insurance scheme. For his undergraduate studies, he attended the University of California, Santa Barbara, studying biology and exploring interests in ecology and microbiology.
Amy Tuey
B.S Candidate at the Department of Nursing at UCLA
Amy Tuey is a third year undergraduate student at UCLA. This year, she transferred into the Nursing major and plans to minor in Global Health. Global health and social justice classes grew her passion for improving people’s access to quality health care. She has 200+ hours working in the Health Frontiers in Tijuana internship at UCSD. In the program, Amy worked at a Tijuana free health clinic that services vulnerable populations experiencing homelessness, displacement from deportation, prostitution, and IV drug use. From 2015-2016, she went on 2 summer mission trips to Costa Rica where she worked with people affected by gang involvement, drugs, prison, and poverty. Amy is dedicated to providing culturally competent care, empowering patients through health education, and closing the gap in health disparities. In the future, she hopes to work with children and families abroad as a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner. She is excited to further her interest in addressing the health needs of low-income communities and vulnerable populations, especially those in Spanish-speaking countries.
Mona Fouladinejad
Post-Baccalaureate Candidate at Charles Drew University
Mona Fouladi is recently graduated UCLA with a major in Psychobiology and a minor in Global Health. She is currently finishing her prerequisites for medical school at Charles Drew University and plans to become a physician. Mona confirmed her dedication towards global health equity after witnessing the wide-spread disparities in countries abroad as well as right here in Southern California. Mona’s dedication towards medicine is rooted in her aspirations to make a positive impact on health-access in the global community. During her time at UCLA, Mona was a dedicated member of Mentors for Academic and Peer Support, which fosters a conducive environment for learning in some of South LA’s most underserved schools. She also worked as an intern for the UCLA T.E.A.C.H. (Together Educating and Advocating Community Health) program, which promoted public health education for at-risk intercity youth. Dedicated towards lowering the rise in type 2 diabetes in youth, Mona worked in Lusis Labs, studying genetic markers correlated with type 2 diabetes. Since graduating, Mona has become highly involved member of UMMA Community Clinic in South Los Angeles and Crescent Clinic in Orange County. Both clinics serve the most underserved populations of Southern California, assuring that everyone, regardless of citizenship or social status, receives high-quality health care. Upon finishing her studies at Charles Drew University, Mona plans to travel to the Middle East and South America to perform research and participate in medical missions.
Josephine Akingbulu
M.P.H. Candidate at Charles Drew University
Josephine Akingbulu is currently pursuing a Master’s of Public Health in Urban Health Disparities from Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science in hopes of bridging the gaps of inequity in underserved populations. She received her Bachelor's degree in Anthropology with a Global Health Minor from UCLA where she was heavily involved in making a difference. This catalyst for change served as a Bruin Advisor - advocating for higher education for minority students in the greater Los Angeles area, SNMA Liaison for the Black Pre-Health Organization, and a Pediatric Assistant for the David Geffen School of Medicine Pediatric Genetics. Ms. Akingbulu believes in taking global initiative and recently spent 3 months interning at King’s College Hospital in London where she was honored be the first intern to create and implement a 10-page Hospital guideline for the NHS. After which, she traveled to Lagos, Nigeria as the Founding CEO and President of her Non-Profit Organization to donate blankets to three hospitals for newborns in need. AmproVision seeks to target inequity as it pertains to education, public health, and community empowerment and with the help of her wonderful board she has started a movement of change among millennials in the Los Angeles area. This Gates Millennium Scholar understands the importance of investing in self and community and seeks to do so on various platforms. She aims to eventually pursue an MD/PhD degree in hopes of building a chain of transcontinental hospitals that will impact the global health sphere altogether.
Mili Patel
B.S Candidate at the Department of Human Biology and Society at UCLA
Mili is currently majoring in Human Biology and Society, concentrating in Bioethics and Public Science Policy with a minor in Public Health. She is a research associate for the student-run global health non-profit, F.I.S.H (Fellowship for International Service and Health), which has been serving the community of Maclovio Rojas, Mexico for the past 12 years. Mili and her fellow research associates submitted a poster about FISH’s sustainable health interventions to the 2018 APRU Global Health Program Student Poster Contest, placing 3rd in the undergraduate division. Mili was invited to be a featured speaker at Stanford University’s 16th annual Youth Leadership Conference where she directed workshops focused on global health advocacy. Since April 2017, she has been a federal global health policy advocate and chair of community outreach for the UC Global Health Institute Advocacy Initiative. As an advocate, Mili has actively worked to increase cross campus global health collaboration in the University of California, has engaged nearly 4,000 students, researchers, and other faculty in a letter writing campaign addressed to all 53 California congressional members and both California Senators, and has attended in-person meetings with federal legislators and their staff in order to advocate for global health funding. She presented her letter writing campaign as a plenary speaker to over 500 UC Global Health Day conference attendees this past spring. She aspires to earn an MPH and MD, eventually working in the public health sector.
Kevin Ding M.D. Candidate at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
Kevin is a first year medical student at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine interested in understanding the global burden of neurological diseases, in particular those requiring surgical interventions. As an undergraduate at Emory University, Kevin worked with a non-profit called the Haiti Neurosurgery Initiative focused on building neurosurgical capacity in Mirebalais, Haiti. Outside of global health, he conducted research on the molecular underpinnings of seizure genesis and the use of optogenetic tools to modulate seizure activity in rats. In Atlanta, he helped bring awareness to issues faced by those experiencing homelessness through coordinating volunteer efforts and providing story-telling platforms. After receiving his B.S. in Neuroscience, he helped run a clinical study involving the use of intracranial stimulating electrodes to enhance memory performance in patients with refractory epilepsy. As a medical student at DGSOM, he hopes to further explore barriers to care in a local and global context alongside his dedicated and passionate peers.
Conference Advisers
Joe Friedman
M.D. Candidate at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
Joe Friedman is a second-year medical student at the David Geffen School of Medicine interested in global health and social epidemiology. His past work has focused on social determinants of health, reproductive justice, the North American opioid epidemic, and HIV. He has conducted research and participated in clinical work in the US, Mexico, Costa Rica and Peru. Prior to starting at UCLA, he completed a combined MPH and research fellowship program at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. He worked on the Global Burden of Disease project, quantifying how improvements in social determinants lead to gains in health. He also worked on disease modeling projects exploring global HIV trends and how they can be improved with anti-retroviral therapy treatment programs. As part of his MPH, he worked in Mexico City, researching social and economic barriers to accessing legal abortion care. He is currently working on research characterizing the social epidemiology of the US opioid epidemic and its connections to Mexico. For his undergraduate studies, he attended the University of Vermont, studying medical anthropology and Spanish.
Simone Renault M.D. Candidate at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
As the lone child living in the international student dormitory at Eden Theological Seminary, Simone was raised by her “aunties and uncles” from all over the world. The relationship between individual identity and global community fostered in that early environment is at the heart of her desire to become a physician. She’s happiest when she is innovating within the gaps of health care, leading UCLA Mobile Clinic Companion Care, an accompaniment initiative connecting persons experiencing homelessness in West Hollywood with medical, social, and economic support; founding Girl the World Over, an empowerment platform for girls’ education; and founding The ImmUNITY Campaign, the first student organization committed to advancing equitable access to vaccines. She received the 2014 Philip G. Hubbard Human Rights Award for her work. Through a fellowship with the NIH Fogarty International Center, Simone continued her work on immunization capacity-building at the Gambian Ministry of Health and Social Welfare. She has interned with Partners In Health and the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law examining the feasibility of a Framework Convention on Global Health. She has researched a stepped-care psychosocial intervention for common mental health problems in government-run schools in New Delhi and Goa, served as teaching assistant for the University of Global Health Equity in Kigali, studied the impact of social support networks on stroke outcomes in Boston, provided daily care for orphans in a Romanian neurocritical care unit, and studied the confluence of health and social work in the state of Tamil Nadu, India. Simone holds degrees in Biology and International Studies from the University of Iowa, her honors thesis focusing on the biosociality of global eradication initiatives.
Annemarie Kelleghan MPH/PhD Candidate at USC
Annemarie Kelleghan is a third year clinical science PhD and MPH dual degree student at USC whose current research focuses on child and adolescent mental health. Prior to attending USC, Annemarie worked at the UCLA Integrated Substance Abuse Program where she helped develop an intervention for parents of adolescents with substance misuse problems and also assisted in conducting research and implementing the use of a smartphone app for methamphetamine users in the US and China. Annemarie completed her undergraduate education at UCLA where she double majored in Human Biology & Society and Psychology. As an undergraduate, her research involvement included work on gesturing and early development of children in rural and urban India, parenting of children with intellectual disabilities, cognitive behavioral therapy interventions for children with comorbid autism and anxiety, and issues of stigma for adults treated in public mental health settings for severe mental illnesses. Annemarie is passionate about addressing mental health as a global, public health concern using community-based approaches to alleviate health disparities and to improve overall mental health.
Madeleine Heller
M.D. Candidate at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
Madeleine is a second year medical student at the David Geffen School of Medicine. Her past research endeavors have focused largely around understanding risk factors for HIV infection in women in sub-Saharan Africa. Prior to starting at DGSOM, Madeleine worked in the Division of Immunology at the University of Cape Town (UCT). She is currently working on a project evaluating patient experience at a student-run free clinic at UCT, along with other medical students from South Africa and the US.
Institutional Staff & Faculty
Thomas J. Coates, Ph.D.
Director, UCLA Center for World Health
Thomas J. Coates PhD is Director of the University of California Global Health Institute, which
brings together the 10-campus UC system to solve global health problems and train future
leaders. He is Distinguished Research Professor of Medicine at the David Geffen School of
Medicine and Director Emeritus of the UCLA Center for World Health. Before coming to UCLA,
Dr. Coates spent 21 years at the University of California, San Francisco. He co-founded the UCSF
Center for AIDS Prevention Studies (CAPS) in 1986 and was the Founding Executive Director of
the UCSF AIDS Research Institute in 1996. Both continue with extramural and intramural
support. San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown declared July 24, 2003 Dr. Thomas J. Coates Day in
San Francisco in honor of his work against HIV. Dr. Coates’ NIH and foundation supported
research continues to focus on HIV prevention with disadvantaged populations, especially in
Malawi and South Africa. Dr. Coates was elected to Institute of Medicine (now the National Academy of Medicine) in 2000.
Fedra Djourabchi
Director of External Relations, UCLA Center for World Health
Fedra Djourabchi is the Director of External Relations for the UCLA Center for World Health. She has over 20 years of global communication and business development experience, and her strength lies in developing strong partner networks. Her background includes global sales and marketing roles while consulting for companies ranging from start-up to Fortune 500 organizations, such as Microsoft and Cisco Systems. Fedra’s knowledge of several languages and the valuable experience acquired while living on various continents were all a great asset in facilitating contacts. Fedra’s involvement with non-profits began 15 years ago when she was approached by the founder of VillageReach to work alongside him to develop a concept designed to find sustainable solutions to the logistical problem of vaccine delivery to the ‘last-mile’ remote villages of Mozambique with a pilot in Cabo Delgado. By establishing critical partnerships with organizations such as the Gates Foundation and gaining local government support, VillageReach was able to increase voluntary immunization rates of participating districts by up to 40 percent in its first year of operation. Whether volunteering for health-related organizations such as the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and its Pacific AIDS Education Training arm, evaluating the HIV Care Continuum training modules, or the Mona Foundation where she assisted in communication processes between the management team and locally-operated education programs’ leads, these experiences would become the pivotal reason why Fedra looked into expanding her career horizons. In 2012, fueled by her passion around global health issues, Fedra obtained a Master of Science in Health Communication from Boston University and decided to pursue her lifelong dream of identifying and connecting with key stakeholders in the health arena and engaging them in planning and executing communication strategies that would promote optimal health outcomes in resource-challenged settings. Fedra’s global health interests include global health policies and security as well as global HIV.
Traci Wells, Ph.D.
Director of Education, UCLA Center for World Health
Dr. Traci Wells is the Director of Education for the UCLA Center for World Health’s Global Health Education Programs and is Adjunct Assistant Professor at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine. She mentors medical students who have an interest in global health, from research and clinical opportunities to obtaining grants and earning degrees with a focus on global health. Some of her interests in global health range from establishing adequate pre-departure training, teaching about ethics and cultural humility, and finding creative ways to assess students and evaluate these programs. Her doctoral degree is in International Education, and she is passionate about providing medical trainees from both the United States and other countries with opportunities to participate in transformational, cross-cultural learning experiences.