New PAVE Scholars and Presentations
The Program in Applied Vaccine Experiences (PAVE) supports vaccine-focused internships for Johns Hopkins students at international organizations that play critical roles in global vaccine policy and delivery.
The creation of these vaccine policy and implementation-driven internships was born out of the desire for students to receive practical experience in the vaccine field in addition to coursework. In 2010, the Department of International Health launched the Vaccine Internship Experiences at WHO, also known as VIEW, which provided interns to the Department of Immunization, Vaccines, and Biologicals at WHO. This was launched originally in partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In 2015 the VIEW program was expanded to include Gavi, UNICEF, and PAHO, and renamed to the Program in Applied Vaccine Experiences.
Under PAVE, students engage in three- to four-month long internships with partner organizations in their second year of their master's or doctoral programs. After completing PAVE most students remain engaged in vaccine-related work and even go on to be consultants and long-term employees at the organizations where they completed their PAVE internship.
We are also excited to introduce the new 2025–2026 cohort who will be beginning their internships at Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance in Geneva, Switzerland, and UNICEF in New York City.
Gavi Interns
Emma Yakutis, MSPH, GDEC
Prachi Singh, MSPH, GDEC
Isha Mohan, MSPH, GDEC
UNICEF Interns
Ivy Acquaye, MSPH, Health Systems
Koumudi Thanda, MSPH, GDEC
Yuka Iijima, MSPH, GDEC
2024 PAVE Scholars
At the beginning of Vaccine Day 2025, the 2024 PAVE Scholars presented their completed research projects.
Below is each student's project title and description.
Kedest Mathewos
Sponsoring Organization: GAVI
During Kedest's time at GAVI, she helped review GAVI's new strategic plan by identifying emerging priority research areas, developing a user-friendly platform to track activity progress, hosted webinars to better understand supplier challenges across the organization, and helped streamline implementation monitoring tools across projects.
Rithika Vakkalaganti Rajesh
Sponsoring Organization: GAVI
Rithika's work at GAVI included analyzing immunization data systems used in the Zero Dose Learning Hub to monitor and measure zero-dose children, investigating the role of the learning hubs in improving the ability to monitor zero-dose children, and helped provide actionable recommendations to strengthen data systems and improve monitoring.
Georgia Artzberger
Sponsoring Organization: WHO
During her internship in Immunization, Vaccines and Biologicals department at the WHO, Georgia updated the visualization tools used in malaria vaccine development, identifying new vaccine trial locations and progress, and collected malaria intervention information at sub-national levels to better understand the interventions used in vaccine-implementing countries.
Stella Dlamini
Sponsoring Organization: WHO
Stella's work at the WHO Department of Immunization, Vaccines and Biologicals focused on understanding global health policy pathways and response regarding RSV including ongoing immunization products, clinical trials and safety monitoring, service delivery logistics, and stakeholder collaboration.