Laurel Legenza is passionate about finding solutions for global health issues: She studied abroad in Spain and completed two internships in Honduras to gain experience in real-world caregiving environments. Drawn to the University of Wisconsin for its emphasis on global health initiatives, Legenza organized the first Interprofessional Health Leadership Development Summit to unite healthcare students across multiple fields and promote cross-disciplinary partnerships, education, and research.
As the very first UW-Madison Comparative Health Systems Global Pharmacy Fellow, she will be participating in a groundbreaking collaboration between the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Pharmacy and University of the Western Cape (UWC) in Cape Town, South Africa. Legenza is looking forward to working with mentors at UW-Madison and UWC, focusing on issues that will strengthen healthcare systems in both countries. She will manage quality improvement projects related to infectious disease, including medication use and access and patient adherence to therapies.
Legenza believes that sharing ideas, knowledge, skills, and resources between disciplines and across borders creates new opportunities for improving the health of populations domestically and abroad. With a commitment to global health and collaborative problem solving, she is pioneering a vision that will allow medical professionals to help patients and promote the sustainable advancement of health throughout the world.
