2026 Robert Suskind & Leslie Lewinter-Suskind Faculty, Resident & Medical Student Global Health Prize Winners
Announcing the Winners of the Lewinter-Suskind Global Health Prizes: Dr. Andrew Steenhoff, Dr. Ellen Boakye, and Owen Parra! Celebration on Friday, May 15 in Smilow Center for Translational Research from 3pm-5pm.
Register Today!
The Annual Robert Suskind, C’59, M’63 and Leslie Lewinter-Suskind Faculty, Resident & Medical Student Prizes in Global Health
In 2013, Penn alum Robert Suskind, MD (C’59, M’63) and his wife, Leslie Lewinter-Suskind, MSS, MFA, generously endowed an annual award recognizing the graduating medical student who demonstrates a commitment to addressing critical global health challenges in their medical career. To complement this prize, in 2021, Bob and Leslie endowed another prize for a PSOM faculty member who exemplifies their lifelong commitment to improving global health and access to care through training partnerships, research, or clinical work. This year, the Suskinds have graciously endowed yet another prize recognizing residents who demonstrate an exceptional commitment to advancing global health equity and whose work reflects meaningful engagement in improving public health awareness, access to care, discovery and outcomes-based research, and/or medical education through collaborative and partnership-driven efforts.
A celebration for this year’s recipients will be held Friday May, 15th in Smilow Center for Translational Research. Register Today!
Meet the 2026 Winners!
FACULTY Winner
Andrew Steenhoff, MBBCh, DCH
Congratulations to Dr. Andrew Steenhoff in recognition of his exceptional leadership in building enduring global research partnerships, developing skills-based training programs, and mentoring more than 100 trainees across CHOP, Penn and partner institutions worldwide. Through decades of work advancing pediatric global health—from Botswana to Ghana and beyond—Dr. Steenhoff has demonstrated the diplomacy, mentorship, and program-building that define impactful and sustainable global health leadership.
Resident Winner
Ellen Boakye, MBChB, MPH
Congratulations to Dr. Ellen Boakye (PGY3) on receiving the Inaugural Suskind-Lewinter Resident Prize in recognition of her outstanding commitment to global health through research, clinical service, and education. From early work identifying gaps in women’s cardiovascular care in Ghana to advancing health equity in the U.S. and Botswana—alongside more than 30 publications and innovative training initiatives—Dr. Boakye’s leadership and dedication exemplify the promise of the next generation of global health physicians.
Student Winner
Owen Parra (MS4)
Congratulations to Owen Parra (MS4) on winning the 2026 Lewinter-Suskind Student Prize in Global Health in recognition of his sustained commitment to global health through research, service, and clinical engagement both locally and internationally. Through work addressing barriers to HIV care and a global health experience in Botswana—alongside scholarly research examining HIV treatment practices in pregnancy—Owen exemplifies the program’s ideals of rigorous scholarship, global partnership, and dedication to underserved communities.
About Bob Suskind and Leslie Lewinter-Suskind
Robert Suskind and Leslie Lewinter met in 1962, during Bob’s third year of medical school when, as a Smith-Klein-French fellow, he was to spend the summer in Cameroon. Since the beginning of their marriage, which they spent in the Peace Corps in Senegal, they have lived, worked and traveled together on every continent except Antarctica (so far!), including taking their four children out of school for a year to travel the globe, observing medical care internationally.
Robert Suskind, MD graduated from the University of Pennsylvania College/Wharton ('59) and Medical School ('63). After pediatric residency at Johns Hopkins, he became Field Director of MALAN, an NIH-funded project in Chiang Mai, Thailand, initiating his research on malnutrition's effect on the immune system and the optimal treatment of the malnourished child. His MIT-Boston Children's PhD program in clinical nutrition for pediatricians was pivotal in raising awareness of nutrition’s importance in clinical medicine. Dr. Suskind’s international experiences include Director of the ICDDRB in Bangladesh and advisor to the Patan Academy of Health Sciences in Kathmandu, Nepal. He has been a Chairman of Pediatrics for twenty years and Dean of three medical schools.
Leslie Lewinter-Suskind received her BS from Penn State, an MSS from Bryn Mawr Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research and an MFA from UNO. After Senegal, she directed an inner-city program under the OEO ("War on Poverty"), followed by a study determining the need for infant care centers in the barriadas of Lima, Peru for Johns Hopkins. As Director of Applied Nutrition at MALAN, she set up follow-up, etiology and intervention studies in childhood malnutrition in the villages surrounding Chiang Mai. At LSU, she directed the International Program for the Departments of Psychiatry and Pediatrics.