Award for Global Engagement

Dr. William Toscano is committed to international engagement and the advancement of global health.

Dr. Toscano has championed collaborations to solve global health problems. He has been involved with global health research and training at various departments and universities around the world, including in Taipei, Tbilisi, Reykjavik, Chiang Mai, and across India. For each of these programs, Dr. Toscano secured partial funding for University of Minnesota students to travel and participate in the training. Each program was an opportunity for students and faculty to work cross-culturally and learn about health, disease, and risk factors around the world.

As the head of the Division of Environmental Health, Dr. Toscano spearheaded discussions to create the global health program within the School of Public Health. He also played an essential role in creating the University’s Masters of Development Practice program, helping develop a proposal for the program and participating in the early development of its curriculum and activities. He continued his support of the program as a teacher of a core MDP program course on global public health, a mentor of MDP field teams on their international summer projects, and a member of the program’s admissions committee and faculty governance body.

Through his leadership and research, Dr. Toscano has focused on the inclusion of low- and middle-income countries, as well as discriminated communities within the United States, in mainstream public and global health. He has always emphasized the importance of “one world, one health.”