Student Feature: Marcy Migdal 2024 Fellow Simran Purewal
Student Feature: Marcy Migdal 2024 Fellow Simran Purewal
The Marcy Migdal Fund for Educational Equality is an annual scholarship awarded to exceptional University of Washington students engaged in work that enhances access to education for both local and global communities. The scholarship (currently $1,200) is provided to up to three students each year, and is open to UW students of all majors.
Simran Purewal, a current UW senior majoring in Physiology and minoring in Global Health, is a 2024 Marcy Migdal Fellow. She used the funding to support her research and outreach contributions to an India-based population health project this past summer in Gurugram, a city southwest of New Delhi.
Simran told CGS that with the support of the Migdal Fellowship she spent the summer “working with an Indian NGO [Sukarya] which works with adolescent health and women’s health.” She added, “there was an opportunity to help Sukarya with their data system approach, which would then lead to helping all of their programs including women’s children’s education and health.”
2024 Migdal Fellow Simran Purewal (Standing, Left) with a Program Officer during a school-based Gender Equity session in Delhi, India
While volunteering with Sukarya, Simran participated in an anemia-based research and data collection program. In the Sukarya summer program, volunteers gained insight into local population health and opportunities to optimize data and survey administration. From this research, Simran contributed to a needs-based assessment project that was drafted to improve data systems compiled into a report.
Simran’s volunteer work with Sukarya was closely connected with her personal background. “The main reason was I’m also of South Asian heritage. So I felt a connection to the organization’s mission especially when it works with cities where I grew up in when I was younger and where my family was.”
Simran says the Migdal Scholarship and the funding support provided to this project will support her career aspirations providing healthcare and resources to local vulnerable communities. “So my career aspirations are to become a physician that really works in community-based health settings. I’m particularly looking forward to working in South King County, especially where that’s where I grew up.”
Read more current and past Migdal Fellow profiles here and keep up-to-date regarding the application announcement for Spring 2025 awards.