Melody Du came to the U of A from China to study art and design in one of the world’s best programs. Now she’s not only living her dream, she’s excelling at it: the fourth-year student’s handiwork was the winning poster design for International Week 2014.

Zubia Mumtaz doesn’t mind making people uncomfortable with her research. And with the clock ticking on the UN’s Millennium Development Goals for 2015, the public health professor is drawing attention to how gender and class inequities affect maternal health, and keeping pressure on policy-makers to support mothers in the world’s poorest regions.

Azalea Lehndorff, a master’s student in global health, had to fight for her education when she was younger so she knows how precious it is. In 2010 she began raising money to educate girls in Afghanistan and has since amassed more than $500,000, enough to build 48 classrooms in four schools—halfway to her goal of 100 classrooms—with a fifth and sixth school on the way.

As Aboriginal outreach co-ordinator for the WISEST program, Jen Duffy helps young women explore careers in science, engineering and technology. The same passion for diversity shows in her first-place entry for the I-Week Photo Contest: a lioness cub she caught on camera while volunteering in Zimbabwe with a lion conservation program. “We are working towards a healthier world when we celebrate and protect the diversity of the world around us. Imagine how healthy the world would be if we treated everything as a relative.”

As an expert on northern and Aboriginal health, Kue Young understands the serious challenges facing people in the far North. As dean of the U of A’s School of Public Health, he envisions connecting students with northern communities to help on projects and learn in real-world situations. “We want to teach our students to do something well, and then they can take those skills anywhere in the world and have a positive impact.”

By producing an educational rap video on sanitation for people in Liberia, ethnomusicologist Michael Frishkopf is lending his virtuosity to a health message that is universal in its importance, yet rooted in the musical culture of its audience. He is discussing the project in an I-Week presentation Jan. 29.

With expertise in economics and education, Phil Okeke-Ihejirika focuses on how both affect women’s rights from Africa to Canada. During I-Week, she is speaking about how her research and teaching help reveal the influence of a globalizing world in our communities and in our everyday realities.

An Aboriginal healer, professor of family medicine and creator of a course on traditional Aboriginal health practices, Clifford Cardinal integrates indigenous knowledge into mainstream medical practice, helping narrow the health gap for Aboriginal Peoples. He is part of a featured I-Week panel Jan. 27.

The academic director of the U of A’s Office of Sustainability and professor of rural economy has done research everywhere from Mongolia and Africa to rural Alberta, looking at how global sustainability depends on what people do where they live and work. In two I-Week presentations, she explains how a personal sustainability plan can serve the collective good, and explores how technology can help us imagine new ways to solve the world’s complex problems.

For Rashad Chin, being an emergency physician means going where people need help most. In December he returned from a relief mission to the Philippines in the devastating wake of Typhoon Haiyan. It was the fifth humanitarian trip for Chin, who also went to Haiti and Pakistan in 2010. “The challenges are different, but whether working at home or working there, you’re helping people. And that is the most important part.”