Health & Medicine is proud to announce our 2024-2025 Chicago Area Schweitzer Fellows! The Fellows include 26 outstanding students representing 11 schools, 9 disciplines, and 10 academic programs, who met together for a program orientation on April 27 and 28 at Esperanza Health Centers.

Fellows heard from Gita Krishnaswamy, Health & Medicine’s Deputy Director, and Priyanka Reddy, Southwest Organizing Project’s HCEZ Health Equity Organizer, who helped the Fellows to hone their skills in logic model development, relational conversations, and community health assessment. Ray Mendez, Fellow for Life and Schweitzer Advisory Council Chair, welcomed the Fellows, using his experience as an illustration of what is possible. Throught the weekend, the incoming cohort demonstrated passion for learning, desire for effective collaboration with communities, and commitment to health equity.

The program’s interdisciplinary approach exposes students to real-world inter-professional collaborative care. Each of the Fellows will design and implement year-long projects to address a variety of urgent health needs (including social determinants of health) facing Chicago’s underserved communities.

“We are thrilled to welcome our 2024-2025 Chicago Area Schweitzer Fellows, a diverse and talented group of individuals who are committed to making a positive change in the health of underserved communities in Chicago,” says says Program Director Karol Dean. “This year’s cohort represents the passion of the early career professionals who will practice skills in the Fellowship that they can use throughout their careers as they address urgent health needs. We are excited to see the innovative projects they will develop and implement over the coming year.”

Read more about this year’s Fellows here.