About the Idea Initiative

Launched in 2016, the IDEA (Innovation + Design Enabling Access) Initiative based at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health seeks to foster innovation and the design of new technologies for greater health access and impact through a combination of research, policy work, and training. It also collaborates with a variety of initiatives across Johns Hopkins University and beyond. A brief overview of the Program’s activities is provided in this video.

The Team

Anthony D. So, Director

Dr. Anthony So is a Professor of the Practice and director of the Innovation+Design Enabling Access (IDEA) Initiative at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Through research, policy work and training, the IDEA Initiative seeks to enhance innovation and access to health technologies needed for public health. Addressing these issues through the lens of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), Professor So has served as Co-Convener of the UN Interagency Coordination Group on Antimicrobial Resistance, which delivered its recommendations to the UN Secretary-General in 2019; contributed to the Lancet Infectious Diseases Commission on Antibiotic Resistance; and was part of the Antibiotic Resistance Working Group of the U.S. President’s Council of Advisors in Science and Technology. His research on reengineering how antibiotics are brought to market has been supported under a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Investigator Award in Health Policy Research. Taking a One Health approach, he was one of the lead authors of UNEP’s global spotlight report on the environmental dimensions of AM in 2023. The IDEA Initiative also serves as the Secretariat for the Antibiotic Resistance Coalition, comprised of over 25 civil society and intergovernmental organizations.

Beyond AMR, Professor So has served in various advisory capacities, from the Institute of Medicine’s Committee on Accelerating Rare Diseases Research and Orphan Product Development to the Advisory Board for Universities Allied for Essential Medicines. He had co-chaired a technical working group of the 2021 WHO Fair Pricing Forum and currently serves on the Technical Advisory Group of the WHOs COVID-19 Technology Access Pool.

He previously worked as an associate director of the Rockefeller Foundation’s Health Equity Division where his grant-making programs ranged from helping to ensure more affordable access to AIDS medicines to enabling tobacco control efforts in Southeast Asia. Overseeing the Liaison Office for Quality as senior advisor to the administrator at the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Dr. So coordinated departmental input to the President’s Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the Health Care Industry and its Consumer Bill of Rights and Responsibilities. He served as Secretary Donna Shalala’s White House Fellow, when he launched the department’s first electronic public service announcement featuring the “Smoke-Free Kids and Soccer” campaign. In the past, he has served on a variety of national, nonprofit boards including Echoing Green, Clean Water Fund, Grantmakers in Health, the Asian Pacific Islander American Health Forum, Community Catalyst, and the Open Society Institute’s Information Program Sub-board.

He received his Bachelor of Arts in philosophy and biomedical sciences and his M.D. at the University of Michigan. He earned his Master’s in Public Affairs from Princeton University; completed his residency in internal medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and his fellowship in the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program at the University of California, San Francisco/Stanford.

Joshua Woo, Senior Program Coordinator

Joshua Woo is Senior Research Program Coordinator with the IDEA Initiative at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He graduated from Johns Hopkins University in 2022 with degrees in Public Health Studies and Economics. Josh previously served as a Research Assistant with the ReAct Strategic Policy Program and the Alliance for a Healthier World--Transformative Technologies and Institutions arm; in this capacity, he has helped plan both the Innovate4AMR competition and LEAP workshop, while also contributing to a number of projects across the IDEA Initiative, such as the ARC newsletter. As part of the Global Health Equity Scholars (GHES) cohort of the Alliance for a Healthier World—Transformative Technologies and Institutions arm, he has worked on both Open Access and clinical trial transparency. Prior to joining the IDEA Initiative, Josh served as Founder of World Health Assistance, a non-profit bringing medical supplies to health clinics around the world and also worked as a student researcher on a number of healthcare-related topics, from HIV and Alzheimer’s to brain cancer. As a student, he sat on the organizing team of a number of student organizations at Johns Hopkins, such as the Osler Medical Symposium, Public Health Student Forum, Hopkins Community Connection, Epidemic Proportions, and MedHacks.

Hanna Wu, Research Assistant

Hanna is a sophomore undergraduate student at Johns Hopkins studying Anthropology and Medicine, Science, and Humanities. She has worked on a number of projects as a research assistant for the IDEA initiative from helping coordinate the Innovate4Health course to composing pieces for the ARC Newsletter. On campus, Hanna actively serves in the Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, Hopkins Community Connection, Partners in Health: Engage, and as co-founder of the Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM) chapter at JHU working on clinical trial transparency and equitable technology transfer. Hanna is interested in citizen science, access to medicines, and global health.

Rawan Elshobaky, Research Assistant

Rawan Elshobaky is an undergraduate international student at Johns Hopkins University who is majoring in Molecular & Cellular Biology and minoring in Computer Science and Bioethics. Growing up in Egypt and attending a pan-African high school in South Africa, Rawan developed a deep interest in global health equity. Her spark was initiated after she led a Model African Union Committee about medical readiness and stability in Africa amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. She later started practicing her public health data analysis and computational skills in her summer internship with the National COVID Collaborative Cohort. Rawan is excited to intern at the IDEA initiative where she will be working on a variety of projects, including the Antibiotic Resistance Coalition (ARC) newsletter.

Jennifer Applegate, Assistant Scientist

Jennifer Applegate is an Assistant Scientist with the Health Systems Program in the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (JHSPH). Jennifer recently completed her PhD in the Department of International Health at JHSPH, where she also earned a MSPH in Global Disease Epidemiology and Control. Jennifer joined our team as a Research and Policy Fellow in August 2018, when she was a PhD Candidate and Doctoral Fellow with the International Center for Maternal and Newborn Health at JHSPH. Her thesis work focused on managing possible serious bacterial infection in young infants with simplified antibiotic treatment when hospital referral is not feasible, an implementation research study to inform operationalization of WHO guidelines in Bangladesh. She has collaborated with the ReAct Strategic Policy Program previously and the IDEA Initiative as a junior faculty member and serving as a Co-Instructor with Dr. Anthony So for the doctoral-level course: Tackling the Intersectoral Challenge of Antimicrobial Resistance: Problem Solving Seminar.

The IDEA Initiative mentors both graduate and undergraduate students as well as staff whose accomplishments make us proud. Among our recent students are Abby Carlson, recipient of the 2022 MPH Capstone Award at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; Joshua Woo, who was named JHU’s Undergraduate Student Employee of the Year and who also received the Northeast Regional Award from the National Student Employment Association; and Hakim Chaoui, a recipient of the 2023 Health Systems Program Award.