Equitable Global Partnerships Course
HERI-Kenya TURNS 5 YEARS OLD!
STORIES FROM the Field
Desiree WINS Outstanding Faculty Award
WELCOMEs & Goodbyes
Recent media and publications
Equitable Global Partnerships Course
"Partnerships, then, are not projects with expiration dates, but the beginning of a life-long connection." Čhaŋku Lúta Wíŋ (Lúta Keegan), final project.
We began this course asking, "How can equitable partnerships reshape our approach to global health and environmental challenges? After ten weeks, we ended up answering a deeper question: how can transformative, long-lasting connections be built? Connections that care for and make space so that other worlds always have a place and so that the homogenizing power dynamics of our current world do not erase them. This course was built entirely from diverse experiences and journeys. Eight remarkable invited speakers, builders of partnerships and transformation, brought anti-colonial thinking, positionality, team science, trust-building, joy, and systems thinking into the classroom, among others. We invite you to watch every lecture posted on this page; we think you'll find them transformative. But what mattered most was the embodiment our students brought to every class discussion, role play, art assignment, and written reflection. Seven extraordinary students taught us, from their own rich and particular experiences, something new in every single class. We also want to acknowledge the generous participation of the coauthors of the ‘Transforming Global Health Partnerships' book, whose work deepened students' understanding of how to build and sustain meaningful partnerships. We hope to offer a second version of this course in 2027, and we envision reuniting the full course team and the beautiful partnership this class created, including the leading team, lecturers, and collaborators. We are immensely proud of what this group accomplished and deeply grateful to have had the chance to know these remarkable people. "I loved this class so much. Thank you! I will recommend it." — Anonymous, end-of-course feedback
Gratitude for our amazing teaching team: A. Desiree LaBeaud, Amelia Meyer, Amna Tariq, and Valeria Ramírez Castañeda. You can access the course at this link.
HERI is 5 years old! HAppy birthday heri!!!
'Happy 5th birthday to my baby girl, HERI (the Health and Environmental Research Institute-Kenya !!! My favorite African proverb says, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” That is exactly what we have done at HERI!!! I never would have imagined that we’d be running a circular economy of waste that provides jobs for women and food while teaching school children and community members the important link between a clean environment and health. Congratulations and deep gratitude to all who have helped co-create this important source of good in the world'. -Desiree Please donate here to help scale our programs to inspire more collective action toward healthier communities and more sustainable environments.
stories from the field
URBAN AMAZONIA AND DISEASE RISK
How are Amazonian cities growing, and how does this impact ecological biodiversity and the presence of vector-borne diseases? LaBeaud Lab Postdoc Dr. Valeria Ramirez Castenada visited 40 households during February and March 2026 across two neighborhood types: cement-house neighborhoods built on drained land and wood-elevated houses where water flows freely. Valeria interviewed residents about housing, demographics, vector-borne disease prevalence, and pest presence and surveyed insect biodiversity across both types. One striking preliminary finding is that residents across both neighborhoods identified the deteriorated state of local streams and the flooding it causes as the main source of mosquitoes and pests: "The water drains more slowly and stays stagnant longer. Mosquitoes come from the trash and the flooding." "All the trash gets trapped, the area stays permanently wet, and the smell is unbearable. It's been like this for 15 years. I think that's why we're always sick." For the next field season (October 2026 – January 2027), she will repeat the same surveys and add water quality, coliform, and Leptospira eDNA sampling from creek water. She hopes to build evidence around the creek as a shared source of water, health, and ecological problems and how city growth and community action can be part of the solution.
A One Health Study to Identify Hantavirus Infections in Kenya
Following the successful completion of our Grenadian hantavirus project in which we discovered the first evidence of human hantavirus exposure in Grenada along with high rates of exposure in rats and bats, we will be extending these activities to Kenya. Hantaviruses are a family of viruses which classically are found in rodents (rats, mice, and voles), although recently shrew and bat hantaviruses have been discovered. These viruses are found throughout the world and species distribution correlates with the reservoir rodent species. In Eurasia, old-world hantaviruses cause a range of illness ranging from mild fever to hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS). North and South America, new-world hantaviruses cause severe respiratory illness known as hantavirus cardiopulmonary syndrome (HCPS) with high mortality rates. Humans are infected by inhaling dried rodent feces and urine, and infections are clearly tied to climate events and land use changes. While these viruses are fairly well studied in East Asia, Europe, North, and South America, little information about their presence or disease burden is available for Africa or the Caribbean. To date, few studies have been completed to assess for hantavirus exposure in humans in East Africa. A small study in 1986 suggested that 8% of inhabitants in an informal settlement in Nairobi had antibodies suggesting prior hantavirus infection, and a 1986 study found 10% of rodents in Mombasa had evidence of hantavirus exposure. In this project LaBeaud Lab Postdoc Dr. Brian Dawes will be funded through the Global Health Emerging Scholars (GHES) program to conduct a human hantavirus seroprevalence study and mixed methods study to assess human-rodent interactions in coastal Kenyan communities. We will be testing previously collected human serum samples for anti-hantavirus antibodies to determine the levels of exposure in these communities. We will also conduct a qualitative study to assess community members’ interactions with rodents including topics such as when and where rodents are located, conditions (trash, standing water, overgrown vegetation, restaurants) in the community that lead to increased rodents, rodent control practices, and potential routes of exposure (droppings, direct handling, bites, contaminated food etc). Follow up quantitative surveys will further quantify this data. This study will include our longstanding collaborator Dr. Francis Mutuku at Technical University of Mombasa, HERI, and a new collaboration with Dr. Cyrus Mugo at Kenyatta National Hospital. We anticipate that this study will provide the first evidence of human hantavirus infections in coastal Kenya and inform future ecologic studies by identifying rodent trapping locations and risk factors for human-rodent interactions. We anticipate this to be the first pilot study to lead to furthermore comprehensive studies regarding rodent-borne infections in East Africa.
Rain, Snow, and Atmospheric Microplastics Study
Ongoing collaborations with the Native American Fiber Program (NAFP) have led to an Indigenous-led monitoring project that involves collecting rain and snow samples across tribal lands throughout the United States to investigate how atmospheric microplastics are deposited into interconnected ecosystems. Researchers and Indigenous community partners documented storm conditions, watershed context, and environmental observations while using contamination-aware sampling methods designed to minimize plastic interference. Guided by Indigenous stewardship principles and data sovereignty, the project combined scientific rigor with community-centered environmental monitoring to better understand how airborne contaminants move through precipitation into soils, waterways, wetlands, and culturally significant landscapes. This fieldwork not only generated foundational data on atmospheric microplastics in underrepresented regions but also strengthened reciprocal partnerships grounded in trust, respect, and long-term environmental protection.
Investigating trash as an ecological niche for dengue virus mosquitoes in pakistan
Labeaud Lab Post Doc Dr. Amna Tariq will be continuing her exciting global health work in Pakistan this summer. As a part of the ASTMH Shope award, Amna will be investigating trash as an ecological niche for dengue virus mosquitoes. The study will be conducted in Ibrahim Hyderi Colony in Karachi during the months of August-October 2026. This project will be completed with the collaboration of Agha Khan University Pakistan. In the field, Amna will perform vector surveillance by trapping Aedes mosquitoes using BG sentinels and ovitraps in the trash sites and houses and conducting household surveys to assess the built factors contributing to Aedes mosquito breeding in the houses. Houses will be compartmentalized into trash sites (within 5 km of trash piles) and control sites (more than 5 km from trash sites), and a comparison will be made. Dr. Amna will also conduct another study among children in Karachi to differentiate febrile diseases into dengue infection and malaria. There is a co-circulation of both the dengue virus and malaria in Pakistan, especially from July to December. Therefore, it is important to accurately quantify the burden of dengue virus and malaria in the vulnerable child population during the co-circulation season. All febrile children will be tested for malaria using blood smear microscopy and for dengue using PCR.
Congratulations to A. Desiree LaBeaud the
OUTSTANDING COMMUNITY-ENGAGED FACULTY AWARD!
Our Professor LaBeaud was recognized for her exceptional efforts to advance community health and wellness and for her commitment to equitable and respectful community partnerships in May 2026. For many years, Dr. LaBeaud has worked closely with researchers and community organizations in Kenya to investigate the impacts of climate and environmental change on infectious diseases. This work led her to co-found HERI-Kenya, a nonprofit dedicated to meeting community-identified needs while addressing trash and other environmental problems that drive diseases such as dengue. Dr. LaBeaud also co-edited Transforming Global Partnerships, a book authored by 90 contributors from 26 countries. This spring, she taught a Stanford course designed to help undergraduate and graduate students foster equitable global partnerships. We are delighted to celebrate Dr. LaBeaud’s well-deserved recognition and her continued commitment to community-centered research, global health, and equitable partnerships.
WELCOME
Sheila Krishnan is a Pediatric Infectious Diseases fellow with a background in public health with a focus in Environment and Health. Her academic interest is in climate-related infectious diseases. She hails from New York, where she completed her undergraduate, medical, and residency education. During residency, she worked on vector-borne disease research and found discrepancies in community Lyme disease knowledge, attitudes, and practices dependent on socioeconomic status. This work was recently published in Vector-Borne and Zoonotic Diseases. Since joining the LaBeaud Lab, she has been working on a project to create a framework for improving local arboviral disease prevention in climate-resilient communities and has been awarded the Maternal and Child Health Research Institute grant to continue her work for the duration of her fellowship.
Lara Biyikoglu is an undergraduate studying biology at the University of Washington in Seattle and a recent graduate of Henry M. Gunn High School in Palo Alto. Over the summer, she will be working as a research intern in the lab under Dr. Esra Büyükcangaz and Dr. Brian Dawes. Their project uses data from field samples collected in Grenada to estimate the burden of dengue infections and identify previously undocumented cases of leptospirosis, Mayaro virus, and Oropouche virus. She is very excited to contribute to research that helps clarify how infectious diseases affect communities on a small island such as Grenada. Outside the lab, she expresses her love for biology through pottery and also works with nonprofit Turkish organizations to provide tutoring for underserved students in Turkey.
Goodbye
This summer, we bid a fond farewell to Amelia, whose last day with the LaBeaud Lab will be July 6, 2026. During her time in the lab, Amelia has made invaluable contributions across an incredible range of activities, including strategic planning, research, grant development, field and laboratory work, course development, teaching, student mentorship, partnerships, and fostering the vibrant culture that makes our lab so special. Amelia’s passion for Mother Earth has left a lasting impact on our team and our work. As she embarks on her next chapter, she will continue working in the sustainability, climate change, environmental science, and environmental justice space, bringing the same curiosity, dedication, and collaborative spirit that have defined her time in the lab. While we will miss her greatly, we are excited to see all that she will accomplish and know she has a bright future ahead.
recent Publications
Serendipitous detection of invasive malaria vector Anopheles stephensi in Kisumu, Kenya in June 2022. Ndenga BA, Owuor KO, Wambua S, Bartilol B, Maia M, Mwangangi J, Omukuti R, Chemutai S, Arabu D, Miringu I, Bosire C, Mwendwa K, Winter CA, Rono MK, Mutuku FM, Taylor R, Bisanzio D, LaBeaud AD, Gerken KN.Sci Rep. 2026 May 4. doi: 10.1038/s41598-026-50986-1. Online ahead of print. PMID: 42082659 10.1038/s41598-026-50986-1
Seroincidence Rate of Typhoidal Salmonella in Children, Kenya, 2017-2018. Khan A, Kamenskaya P, Rezende I, Mutuku FM, Ndenga B, Jembe Z, Maina P, Chebii P, Ronga C, Okuta V, Garrett DO, Bisanzio D, Aiemjoy K, Andrews JR, LaBeaud AD, Charles R. Emerg Infect Dis. 2026 Mar;32(3):368-375. . PMID: 41863782 https://doi.org/10.3201/eid3203.250469 Brucellosis Seroprevalence in Humans and Risk Factors Among High-Risk Groups at Two Urban Populations in Kenya.Buyukcangaz E, Bayrau BA, Pinnamaneni A, Ichura C, Mutuku FM, Ndenga BA, LaBeaud AD.Vector Borne Zoonotic Dis. 2026 Mar;26(3):143-152. Epub 2025 Dec 31. https://doi.org/10.1177/15303667251392007
Communications
Stanford Global Health, Communications ‘New publication reveals human exposure to zoonotic bacterial disease in Kenya, suggesting public health concern’ Published: 12/04/2025, By Catherine Wu, Global Health Communications Assistant https://globalhealth.stanford.edu/research/new-publication-reveals-human-exposure-to-zoonotic-bacterial-disease-in-kenya-suggesting-public-health-concern.html/
Credits:
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