Map the System is a global competition, hosted by Oxford University, focused on exploring the broader context of social and environmental issues. All Johns Hopkins students can compete as part of a team on the Homewood campus.
“Seeking to understand systems requires more than just technical know-how and mapping skills; it also requires heart and a connection to our own and others’ humanity.”
Joe Hsueh, MTS Educator and Founder, Omplexity
Contact Keira Wilson for more information about Map the System and how you can get involved.
The Map the System competition is open to all undergraduate and graduate students at Johns Hopkins University. No experience in systems mapping is necessary. Individuals outside the Hopkins community are also eligible to join a team. However, all teams in the competition must comprise at least one Johns Hopkins student or recent graduate and have a maximum of five active team members.
The Systems Learning Program is required for all competition-bound students. Completing this program earns an Oxford-issued credential and prepares you for the Map the System competition.
The Oxford Systems Learning Program offers a 6 Modules for foundational understanding and competition preparation.
Module 1-Understanding complex social problems
Module 2-Taking a systems approach
Module 3-Methods for learning about systems
Module 4-Mapping depth and power
Module 5-Stakeholder mapping and causal loop diagrams
Employers and Experts are invited to share their insights from the field by offering competitive student teams an opportunity to tap into professionals. Employers provide students with real-world perspectives, offer current challenges to the topic and enrich their understanding of complex issues and guide them towards innovative solutions.
Employers engaged in MTS JHU offer 2 phone conversations with a team, sharing perspectives. JHU offers access to a select team of students, and invitation to the JHU Competition and recognition as a Map the Systems Innovative Employer at JHU.
We appreciate our employer volunteers for their time and expertise in the Spring 2025 JHU Map The System. Your valuable contributions enhance our students’ projects and help shape the next generation of changemakers. Thank you for your support!
Map the System is run by the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, in partnership with educational institutions worldwide who each run the competition at their institution. On the Oxford site, you will find winning submissions from previous Global Finals, a list of past judges, FAQs, and much more.
Group Members: YounJung (YJ) Na, Melanie Vukovich, Georgia Artzberger
YJ, Melanie, and Georgia are MSPH students at the Bloomberg School of Public Health. Together, they have diverse experiences in migrant health, infectious diseases, environmental health, and health systems issues to investigate a significant public health issue in the United States. They are excited to form the research team PathPals, representing the movement of people and diseases over time.
The history of beautification efforts, particularly since the Highway Beautification Act of 1965, has been a topic of both advocacy and contention. While proponents see beautification as a means of environmental renewal and community revitalization, opponents argue it can restrict business freedoms and raise questions of necessity. Efforts like Edward McMahons call for a national scenic highway system in 1987 highlighted the need for stronger policies, but proposed funding methods, such as a highway user fee, were never implemented. Today, the debate continues, and complex systems thinking through tools like stakeholder mapping and systems modeling can help visualize relationships, identify challenges, and develop balanced solutions that address both economic and environmental concerns.
Group Members: Saumik Das, Pranav Potluri, Meghna Manjith, and Mia Kim
Immigrant and refugee women in Baltimore face significant barriers to perinatal care due to financial constraints, legal restrictions, language barriers, and cultural mismatches. Baltimore’s overburdened healthcare system further exacerbates these disparities. This project examines systemic obstacles at individual, policy, physician-interpersonal, community, and organizational levels and highlights gaps in care. Solutions such as multilingual Medicaid enrollment, culturally specific maternity hubs, AI-driven translation tools, and transportation assistance could improve access and outcomes.
Data indicates reading skills are low in both children and adults. Reading is a part of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 4. Lifelong learning and quality education are essential. To make progress towards the goal, this report examines how avid readers in K-12 create a lever of change for adults in the US. Additionally, this report provides actionable implementations to create change.
Breast Cancer – A Death Sentence for Ugandan Women?
Group Members: Dory Bittle, Teja Sathi, Kim Hwang Yeo
Breast cancer is the world’s most prevalent cancer and is the leading cause of cancer death in women worldwide: 685,000 women diagnosed with breast cancer died in 2020. In Uganda, the age-standardized incidence is 21.3/100,000, and almost half of Ugandan women diagnosed with breast cancer will die of the disease. These high mortality rates are often explained by women presenting with late-stage disease when treatment is more challenging and outcomes are poor.
Our work seeks to understand the broader systemic challenges that women with breast cancer face, delving into the interactions with wider stakeholder relations that are keeping the current state of breast cancer inequity at the status quo. We combine our experience in Uganda, stakeholder interviews, and secondary research to put forth compelling approaches to make meaningful impact on this challenge.
Dory Bittle
Dory is a Masters of Science in Public Health student at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. At Bloomberg, she studies population, family, and reproductive health. After graduation, she hopes to design, implement, and evaluate global sexual and reproductive health behavioral interventions and programs for adolescents and youth.
Teja Sathi
Teja Sathi is a mechanical and biomedical engineer committed to improving health outcomes for marginalized communities via medical technology innovation. Prior to joining the Johns Hopkins Center for Bioengineering Innovation and Design in 2022, Teja was an R&D engineer at W. L. Gore and Associates’ Medical Products Division.
Kim Hwang
Kim Hwang, Yeo is a bioengineer focused on advancing healthcare technologies through cutting-edge, interdisciplinary approaches. He completed his BSc in Bioengineering at UC Berkeley with a departmental citation in 2022 and has trained in MSE in biomedical innovation and design at Johns Hopkins.
Juliet Zon
Juliet Zon is a general medical practitioner trained in Ghana and a first-year MPH/MBA student at Johns Hopkins University. With her background in healthcare and business, she is dedicated to bridging global health inequity gaps and strengthening health systems in underserved populations through innovative and evidence-based models.
Group Members: Anayeli Garcia Villa and Louie Martinez
Anayeli Garcia Villa
Anayeli Garcia Villa is a senior at Johns Hopkins University majoring in Environmental Health Engineering. Her interests in environmental engineering include water quality, drinking water, and wastewater treatment systems. Her experiences growing up in rural Mexico helped her understand the direct ties between access to public infrastructure and public health. Anayeli served as project lead for Engineers Without Borders, working on the final implementation phase of a water distribution system in a rural Guatemala community. Anayeli’s experiences motivated her to participate in Map the System to further understand why specific communities lack access to safe drinking water.
Louie Martinez
Louie Martinez is a senior at Johns Hopkins University majoring in Public Health Studies. Louie’s interests in public health are interdisciplinary and include food/water systems, health education, and rural health outcomes. Louie has worked extensively with the Center for Indigenous Health (CIH) throughout the Navajo Nation, Arizona, New Mexico, and Baltimore. Louie grew up in an old uranium mining town in rural New Mexico, where water contamination and lack of governmental oversight have exacerbated negative health-related consequences across the greater southwestern United States. Louie’s upbringing and his work during his undergraduate career have fueled an interest in water security work and water justice.
Group Members: Deya Chatteriji, Anusha Sharda, Abbi Devins
Coach: Megan Christofield
Deya Chatterji
I am a full-time MPH student focusing on health systems and policy. I am very passionate about global health and health advocacy and am pursuing certificates in those areas. I have previously trained as a physician from India. I did my residency in community medicine. My journey in public health started even before I knew about the field of public health. I have advocated for adolescent and women’s health in my village in rural West Bengal, India. After providing a decade of health education and care, I decided to start an NGO, “The Golden Hour Foundation,” with some of my fellow villagers who dream of providing care to the people of that village and surrounding areas within the Golden Hour. I wanted to understand the role of policymaking in rolling out health services, which brought me to Hopkins. I joined the MTS platform to dive deeper into the issues that affect the quality of service provision in maternal health services among various racial groups.
Abbi Devins
I’m a full-stack software developer studying to be an AI engineer. I have a background in medicine (I am a doctor of medicine), but I chose to pursue engineering as a career after graduating from my program. I am interested in finding solutions to the reproductive healthcare discrepancies in this country, which is why I joined the MAP system project here at JHU this year. I hope to be able to combine my background in medicine, software engineering, and artificial intelligence to find solutions to this complex issue.
Anshu Sharda
I am a freshman at JHU, studying neuroscience and economics, and I am on the pre-med track. Through MAP the System, I am interested in researching more into social issues relating to healthcare so that I can learn more about disparities in medicine and potential solutions.
Group Members: Sudheer Tenali, Atif Irshad, David Adams, and Matthew Ehlert
The rise of lithium-ion batteries has fueled the global transition to electrification, yet their production and disposal present significant sustainability challenges. This system map analyzes the interconnected lifecycle of lithium from extraction and refinement to assembly, use, and recycling highlighting inefficiencies in the current linear supply chain. By integrating recycling innovations, policy standardization, and closed-loop manufacturing, lithium-importing nations can reduce reliance on raw extraction and create a circular economy. Addressing these challenges holistically can enhance sustainability, reduce environmental impact, and ensure long-term energy security
South Baltimore residents experience significantly higher rates of asthma, lung cancer, and other respiratory diseases, with life expectancy in the area falling far below the city’s wealthier neighborhoods. A major contributor to these health disparities is the BRESCO waste-to-energy incinerator, which has operated for nearly 40 years and is Baltimore’s largest source of industrial air pollution. Emitting harmful pollutants while burning 2,250 tons of trash daily, BRESCO disproportionately impacts socially and economically vulnerable communities. Addressing this environmental injustice requires urgent policy interventions and sustainable waste management solutions to protect public health.
Sub-Saharan Africa’s persistent gender inequality severely impacts child nutrition, with women holding only 2% of land despite comprising 76% of the agricultural workforce. Historical land policies, gendered labor roles, and financial exclusion undermine women’s autonomy and caregiving capacity. This study, combining quantitative data and case studies, reveals how these structural barriers perpetuate intergenerational malnutrition. It calls for gender-inclusive policies, equitable land and credit access, and sustainable, locally led food systems.
Rickie Eatherly (she/her) is a Life Design Educator serving students in Psychology and Brain Sciences. Rickie attended the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill for her undergraduate degree in business administration and dramatic art.
Rickie began career as a recruiter for the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and later transitioned to the world of qualitative market research. There she conducted interviews, analyzing research panels, and facilitating focus groups as an analyst for the research firm Smarty Pants. Rickie recently completed her master’s degree in Communication at Johns Hopkins. Rickie has successfully utilized the tenets of Life Design to navigate her personal and professional journey for over 6 years and is excited to help others do so as well!
Hope (she/her) is the Associate Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Neuroscience Program, a role she has held for more than half of her tenure at Johns Hopkins University. She is deeply passionate about working with undergraduates, finding immense joy in supporting their academic journeys and celebrating their achievements.
With nearly 20 years at Johns Hopkins, Hope has built a diverse career supporting students at all levels, including undergraduates, graduates, and resident fellows. Her experience spans multiple areas, including the School of Medicine, the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, the Office of Academic Support, and the Neuroscience Program.
Megan (she/her) is a technical advisor & director working in global sexual and reproductive health at Jhpiego. In her work, she uses strategic foresight, systems thinking, and design to provide strategy leadership, particularly to introduce new & underutilized contraceptives in LMICs.
Megan holds a MPH in Women’s and Reproductive Health, a BA in Peace Studies, and is currently a part-time MDes candidate in Strategic Foresight and Innovation.
Katrina (she/her) is a technical advisor in applied design working in global public health at Jhpiego. She uses participatory and interactive methods to work with complex challenges, identifying as a design researcher and strategist, with expertise in systemic, social and behavioral change. Katrina has co-founded multiple social ventures include a feminist design and evaluation studio called Picture Impact and a platform to democratize technical expertise in sustainability and circularity called be Waste Wise.
She is a part-time lecturer in the Masters in Engineering, Sustainability and Health program at University of San Diego where she teaches a course around the social, environmental, and economic dilemmas in waste, exploring the realities of getting to zero waste.
Cozette is a Program Officer for the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs (CCP) with 6 years of experience working in the maternal and reproductive health sector. Through her work on CCP’s US-based initiatives, she facilitates human-centered design workshops, and assists in building programming from strategy to implementation for the B’more for Healthy Babies Initiative and UChoose Baltimore; she also provides knowledge management support for the Social and Behavior Change Activity in Uganda. She has led and provided technical guidance on social enterprise accelerators based domestically and globally. Her passions span across health communications, reproductive health disparities, and human centered design as a strategy to shifting health outcomes in Black and Brown communities. Cozette holds a B.S. in Public Health Sciences from Xavier University of Louisiana, and an MPH in International Health and Development from the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.
April Foiles is a teaching consultant, leadership coach, and learning scientist at Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School, where she leads the Learning Innovation Team. April’s work focuses on empowering adult learners and supporting educators in creating impactful and inclusive learning experiences through human-centered learning environments, instructional design, process design, design thinking, agile management methods, and other innovative tools.
April leads workshops on effective teaming, leadership, improvisation, and storytelling. Her overall mission is to reduce suffering and increase well-being. She is committed to using creativity and analysis to shape the future of education with care and intention.
Hannah Ross is a Contract Negotiator working in Specialty Pharmaceutical Trade Relations at CVS Health. In her work Hanah is responsible for the development and implementation of contracting strategies with pharmaceutical manufacturers while owning ongoing external relationships and managing internal partners as it relates to her book of business.
Hannah attended Salem College for her undergraduate degree in business administration and economics.
Maggie Anixter (she/her) is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker currently working in North Carolina. She has foundation in direct service and leadership, and is currently serving as the Executive Director for a network of outpatient therapy agencies across North Carolina, overseeing 11 centers dedicated to providing high-quality mental health services. She holds both undergraduate and Master of Social Work degrees from Appalachian State University.
Starting her career during the COVID-19 pandemic, Maggie worked with children and families, using a systems-based approach to create lasting tools for emotional well-being. With a focus on empowerment, systems theory, and a strengths-based perspective, Maggie has led initiatives to enhance services, manage providers, and expand mental health resources across North Carolina.
Avi Loeb (they/them) is a member of the Hire Hopkins team at Johns University under University Student services. They care the the first point of contact for forging connections with Hopkins employer partners. They spearhead employer development, marketing initiatives, and reporting to ensure we build strong partnerships that support student employment opportunities.
They have a background in marketing, having worked with marketing agencies, software companies, and nonprofits. They possess a strong background in project management, allowing them to effectively organize and execute across a diverse range of initiatives. In their free time, Avi enjoys baking and spending time with their two cats.
Keira is a full-time celebration enthusiast focusing on what makes us revel and how communities come together to thrive. She is the Sr. Assistant Director of Life Design at Johns Hopkins leveraging creative spaces futurist and feminist lens, host for The Dinner Party, navigating conversations on grief, and performer in Philadelphia’s Vaudevillian New Year Brigade. Bringing more than 14 years of experience in non-profits and higher education as a facilitator, career coach, and civic boundary spanner, she believes we learn who we are through a tenacious pursuit of self-knowledge, and the letting go of fear to offer our unique form of generosity. In the past she has worked for Grinnell College in service and social Innovation, Princeton University’s civic engagement, and with Friends General Conference expanding welcoming communities.
