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Global Initiative
Against HPV and
Cervical Cancer

Cervical Cancer Elimination theme song

GIAHC YOUNG LEADERS (GYL)

The GIAHC Young Leaders (GYL) program (40 and younger) is a student/researcher-run program with supervision from GIAHC physician members. The program provides a global platform for young advocates to network and exchange knowledge regarding HPV cancers with a focus on cervical cancer, and to take action to eliminate these cancers.

WHY GYL

The GIAHC Young Leaders (GYL) program (40 and younger) is a student/researcher-run program with supervision from GIAHC physician members. The program provides a global platform for young advocates to network and exchange knowledge regarding HPV cancers with a focus on cervical cancer, and to take action to eliminate these cancers.

Express ideas through creative means, including social media campaigns and artistic works

Network with other advocates to exchange knowledge regarding HPV and cervical cancer

Collaborate with global agencies on cervical cancer elimination initiatives

Educate members of their own communities on the importance of HPV vaccination for cancer prevention

Meet Our Team

Ariana Montesdeoca

GYL CHAIR
Social Media Committee Leader

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McKenna Stoudemire

McKenna Stoudemire

GYL Vice-CHAIR
Outreach Committee Co-Leader

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Chenai

Chenai

Scientific Committee Leader

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Anisha Loeb

Anisha Loeb

Public Health and Advocacy Committee Leader

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Anisha Pethkar

Fundraising Leader

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PROJECTS

Our committees work throughout the year on various projects to raise awareness. In addition, we develop at least one signature project each year with our partner organizations and collaborators.
GIAHC visits Capitol Hill and the White House with its youngest members.
2024
  • We are thrilled to welcome the GIAHC Young Leaders’ group, who, along with their mothers and aunts, visited Capitol Hill and the White House to advocate for eliminating HPV cancers. This event, part of the Healthy Girls, Healthy Women 2024 initiative, was organized by HPV Cancers Alliance. Please see the flyer for details.

View Flyer

  • GIAHC leaders join vaccine ambassadors to raise funds for Surinam.

Learn More

Embracing the Power of Youth: Champions Against HPV-associated Cancers
2023
To mark World Cancer Day, GIAHC and AWHS launched a fundraiser to help a program in Kenya screen for cervical cancer. Read More
2022
2021

GYL members presented a poster for the AMWA LEADS conference titled Instagram as a Tool for Increasing Awareness for HPV Vaccination and Cervical Cancer Screening: A Content Analysis of Related Posts.

Download Power Point Presentation

2020

Partnered with Kellogg Sister’s Corona Quilt Project to link our experiences to those of others during Covid -19, to build a web of healing inspiration, belonging and positive action. It is made up of squares created by people/organizations from around the world, courageously giving voice to our experience. The project was presented at a webinar during the HPV Prevention Week

View Project

2019
  • Participated in a World Health Organization (WHO) event at the Women Deliver (WD) Conference.
  • Partnered with Basic Health International (BHI) for a run/walk for cervical cancer awareness campaign in New York, NY.

View Flyer

2018

Partnered with the International Papillomavirus Society (IPVS) for the first HPV Awareness
Day. Read more about GIAHC’s latest work and see a new video produced by the Young
Leaders Program in GIAHC’s newsletter.

2017

In honor of Cervical Cancer Awareness Month, Aseemkala and GIAHC presented the voices of patients in a Dance-Medicine Narrative. Click here to watch. A short clip of the video was played by Dr. Krishnan during her presentation at the International Papillomavirus Society Conference in Cape Town, South Africa in February 2017.

Watch Video

2016

Partnered with Jo’s Trust, UK, in the #SmearForSmear campaign, a worldwide social media campaign to raise awareness about cervical cancer. The campaign had the objective of engaging everyone in cervical cancer prevention, by encouraging and reminding women to get their routine Pap smear.

View Campaign

2015

Partnered with AMWA students to develop an interactive PowerPoint presentation designed for medical, nursing, public health students/staff, school nurses/teachers, to present to middle and high school students and in other appropriate community settings.

This goal of this presentation is to educate and empower the younger generation, (boys’ girls and the LGBTQIA community) with scientific knowledge regarding the benefits of HPV vaccination. Games, videos and translations in Spanish are also included.

The PowerPoint presentation fits well within a classroom period. A script for the presenter, a game/quiz and an inspirational video are included. This presentation can also be tailored to the needs of other programs as well and is updated regularly.

PRESENTATIONS

Each year, selected members from GYL are invited to present our work during the Us vs. HPV Prevention Week. You can view the agenda and our presentations here:
Us vs. HPV
Women Deliver 2023

AWARDS

The Shobha S. Krishnan HPV and Cervical Cancer Champion Award is presented to a young leader who has demonstrated exemplary interest and creativity in making a positive difference in HPV and cervical cancer prevention. The award is open to any AMWA or GIAHC member who has been actively involved in the GIAHC Young Leaders Program.
The awardee is jointly selected by the GIAHC and AMWA leadership. Each award includes a cash gift and a letter of appreciation. There is no application. Award recipients are selected from the pool of individuals who have worked directly with GIAHC and have shown tremendous interest and dedication to the cause.
2024
Recipient: Lizzie Klein
Elizabeth Klein is a medical student at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University (Class of 2024). Her interest in the intersection of women’s health and infectious diseases, and passion for empowering women to take control of their health, led her to GIAHC. Elizabeth assists with planning GIAHC’s annual Us vs. HPV Prevention week to promote awareness about HPV and HPV-related diseases. She is instrumental in introducing a student grant for promoting HPV awareness. She hopes that with increased dissemination of knowledge and improved access to care, HPV-related cancers will be a medical challenge conquered in her lifetime.
2023
Recipient: Elise Vance
Elise is a medical student at the University of Louisville School of Medicine. She graduated with a Master’s degree in Medical Physiology in May of 2021 from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and received her B.S. from Murray State University majoring in Biology with minors in Chemistry and Business Administration. She is passionate about advocating for underserved populations in healthcare after she worked in a rural OB/GYN clinic and observed the lack of community education and resources in the fight to eliminate cervical cancer. She is very involved with the American Medical Women’s Association and serves as the Student Chair for their charitable arm the American Women’s Hospitals Service, where she was first introduced to GIAHC. She previously served as the Social Media Committee Leader for GIAHC and is excited to continue to further the mission of GIAHC and work to increase HPV awareness and empower young leaders to be the generation to eliminate cervical cancer. Her areas of interest for the upcoming year include expanding the impact and involvement of GIAHC on young leaders around the world, taking on public health advocacy projects, and furthering scientific research opportunities for students.
2022
Recipient: Lori Horhor
In May of 2020, Lori Horhor graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, where she studied Medical Biology and Physiology and minored in music. Some of her passions include music, medicine, and serving underserved communities. She loves to work with children and tutor underprivileged students through School on Wheels, Inc. She is also heavily involved with the Hidden Road Initiative, a nonprofit organization that works to improve access to education to low-income students living in the rural villages of Armenia. She was a research assistant for the Kristin Scott Laboratory in Berkeley’s Molecular and Cell Biology Department, studying gustatory circuitry in Drosophila melanogaster. She works as a medical assistant and scribe at Bloom Obstetrics and Gynecology, Inc, where she has witnessed how misinformation can prevent patients from taking the easy, but necessary, steps to protecting themselves from cervical cancer. She was first introduced to GIAHC through the American Medical Women’s Association, where she has served as a leader both locally and nationally for four years. She is ecstatic to explore ways in which music and the arts can be utilized to help spread awareness about HPV and cervical cancer.
2021
Recipient: Rachel Anderson

Rachel is a medical student at UMass Medical School (Class of 2022) who is passionate about improving access to care for underserved populations. As a medical student, she became interested in cervical cancer prevention when she learned that many of the patients at her local free medical programs had no access to HPV vaccination or cervical cancer screening. She now works within her own community to study barriers to cervical cancer screening among different populations and within the global community to promote awareness for prevention of HPV-related cancers. Her other areas of focus within the medical field include combating human trafficking and healthcare policy reform, and she is an active leader in Physicians Against Trafficking Humans (PATH), AMWA’s Advocacy Committee, and the Massachusetts Medical Society. She plans to match into family medicine so that she can form trusting relationships with her patients, provide care across generations, and address the social, economic, and environmental factors that influence health within a community.

Prarthana
2020
Recipient: Prarthana Vasudevan

For the past five years, Prarthana has specialized in vaccine communications and advocacy. She currently works at the Johns Hopkins International Vaccine Access Center (IVAC) on various policy and advocacy projects. Prior to public health, she worked for five years in academia conducting microbiology and immunology laboratory research. She received her Master of Science (MS) in Biological Sciences from the University of Maryland and her Master of Science in Public Health (MSPH) in Global Disease Epidemiology & Control from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where she also earned a Certificate in Vaccine Science & Policy. With GIAHC, Prarthana leads a team of young members to develop and maintain technical content, as well as provides strategic advocacy and communications input on GIAHC projects.

2019
Recipient: Reid Mergler

Dr. Reid Mergler is a Psychiatry Resident at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, NY with a particular interest in women's mental health. She previously led the GIAHC Young Leaders Program and received the 2019 HPV and Cervical Cancer Champion Award. She has a lifelong passion for women's health and wellness. During undergrad at Cornell, she conducted research on the cognitive effects of PCOS and she studied abroad at the WHO in the department of Reproductive Health and Research. At the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, she was very active in the American Medical Women's Association and GIAHC. After graduating in 2019, she completed her intern year in OBGyn at Montefiore in the Bronx, NY. Now, in Boston, she is enjoying psychiatry with the hope to pursue a fellowship in Reproductive Psychiatry.

2018
Recipient: Shilpa Darivemula

Shilpa Darivemula, MD, MS is an Obstetrics and Gynecology resident at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. She received the Shobha S. Krishnan HPV and Cervical Cancer Champion Award in 2018 for her work as the Arts lead for Global Initiative Against HPV and Cervical Cancer. Her passion has remained with blending classical and cultural arts, medical humanities, and women's healthcare. She co-founded and runs the Aseemkala Initiative, an organization that uses classical Indian dance and other cultural arts to improve health equity for women. She currently is the co-lead of the AMWA Dance and Theater Arts Task Force and a Vivian Shih GME Scholar.

Alice Drain
2017
Recipient: Alice Drain

GYL AMBASSADORS’ CLUB

This club gives an opportunity for graduating team members and others young leaders and volunteers to continue to play a proactive role in GIAHC’s mission for as long as they want.

Elise Vance

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Resource link

Reid Mergler

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Dr. Reid Mergler is a Psychiatry Resident at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, NY with a particular interest in women's mental health. She previously led the GIAHC Young Leaders Program and received the 2019 HPV and Cervical Cancer Champion Award. She has a lifelong passion for women's health and wellness. During undergrad at Cornell, she conducted research on the cognitive effects of PCOS and she studied abroad at the WHO in the department of Reproductive Health and Research. At the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, she was very active in the American Medical Women's Association and GIAHC. After graduating in 2019, she completed her intern year in OBGyn at Montefiore in the Bronx, NY. Now, in Boston, she is enjoying psychiatry with the hope to pursue a fellowship in Reproductive Psychiatry.

Shilpa Diruvemula

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Shilpa Darivemula, MD, MS is an Obstetrics and Gynecology resident at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. She received the Shobha S. Krishnan HPV and Cervical Cancer Champion Award in 2018 for her work as the Arts lead for Global Initiative Against HPV and Cervical Cancer. Her passion has remained with blending classical and cultural arts, medical humanities, and women's healthcare. She co-founded and runs the Aseemkala Initiative, an organization that uses classical Indian dance and other cultural arts to improve health equity for women. She currently is the co-lead of the AMWA Dance and Theater Arts Task Force and a Vivian Shih GME Scholar.

Anita Krishnan

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Anita Krishnan is an investment banking associate at Cain Brothers-San Francisco, a pre-eminent healthcare investment bank. She graduated from Barnard College, Columbia University in 2013 with a BA in Economics and Mathematics. During her time at Barnard, Anita served as the treasurer of The HPV Education and Outreach Project. In addition, Anita is involved in working with young women, in the areas of education and health care. Anita is highly interested in getting businesses and companies involved with local social causes. She strongly supports GIAHC’s objectives and looks forward to utilizing her experience and interests in encouraging others of her generation to get involved.

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