With each global health crisis, the interconnectedness of populations around the globe becomes more pronounced. Diseases not only affect the health of communities, but they have a profound impact on political, economic, and social stability within countries and regions. This course engages the interdisciplinary nature of global health by approaching the issue through the lens of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) developed by the United Nations. The SDGs range in focus from good health and well-being to gender equality to clean water and sanitation to affordable, clean energy. By engaging the ways that health has a stake in these goals, the course will bring the expertise of faculty from the University of Pittsburgh and CMU as well as practitioners to understand and address the issue surrounding global health from a myriad of perspectives and avenues. With an applied focus, the course will assist students in engaging and advocating for a community on a global health issue through a policy memo. This iteration of the course will examine gender equality and SDG #5.

Dr. Ervin Sejdic received B.E.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Western Ontario in Canada. From his earliest exposure to research, he has been eager to contribute to the advancement of scientific knowledge through carefully executed experiments and ground-breaking published work.

In February 20216, President Obama named Dr. Sejdic as a recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. In 2017, Dr. Sejdic was awarded the National Science Foundation CAREER Award. In 2018, he was awarded the Chancellor's Distinguished Research Award at the University of Pittsburgh.

Dr. Sejdic's passion for discovery and innovation drives his constant endeavors to connect advances in engineering to society's most challenging problems. Hence, his research interests include biomedical signal processing, gait analysis, swallowing difficulties, advanced information systems in medicine, rehabilitation engineering, assistive technologies and anticipatory medical devices.