UB graduate student in public health receives $18,000 fellowship from AAUW

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Tejal Shelat, a physician and graduate student in the University at Buffalo School of Public Health and Health Professions (SPHHP), has been awarded an $18,000 fellowship by the American Association of University Women (AAUW) through its International Fellowship Program.

Shelat is enrolled in the SPHHP Department of Epidemiology and Environmental Health, where she is pursuing a master’s degree in public health with a concentration in health services administration.

"I am very grateful to the AAUW for helping to fund my graduate education, which will further my goal of working for the betterment of women in developing countries,” she says.

Shelat is a graduate of Lady Hardinge Medical College, a medical college for women, part of the University of Delhi Faculty of Medical Sciences. She is a registered medical practitioner and has worked as a primary care doctor in rural India.

While at Lady Hardinge, she says she had considerable exposure to women’s health services, notably the operation of maternal and child health clinics, and continues to have a particular interest in health care disparities among vulnerable women.

Shelat was a contributing author of “Dietary Practices and Physical Activity Performed by School Children in Selected Districts of India,” published last year in the Indian Journal of Community Health.