Bailey Helbert selected as 2016 HAI Global Health Scholar

Bailey Helbert was selected as the 2016 Healthy Appalachia Institute Global Health Scholar and will travel with the U.Va. Center for Global Health to St. Kitts and Nevis in Summer 2016. She will join the U.Va. Minority Health International Research Training Program cohort and spend ten weeks researching youth diabetes.

“I am so thankful to be chosen as the UVa-Wise candidate to travel to St. Kitts and Nevis and to be a part of the MHIRT cohort,” Helbert said.  "I’ve heard only wonderful things from mentors and past students who have traveled with the U.Va. Center for Global Health. I am also excited to further immerse myself in research on diabetes, as my undergraduate research focuses on that as well.”

Helbert is a junior biochemistry major from Coeburn, Virginia.  Her undergraduate Fellowship in Natural Sciences research with faculty mentor Floyd Beckford has focused on experimental and analytical properties of zinc-curcuminoid complexes exhibiting anti-diabetic effects.

Since 2010, HAI has funded UVa-Wise students to participate in global health research with the U.Va. Center for Global Health. Helbert received additional support from the UVa-Wise International Programs Scholarship Committee with funding from the Sam Gilbert Foreign Studies Fund.