EWH began in 2001 with the vision of Dr. Robert Malkin and Dr. Mohammad Kiani, then professors in Memphis, Tennessee. Appalled by hospital conditions he encountered during his travels to Nicaragua, Malkin set out to create a charitable organization that could harness the resources of collegiate engineering programs for the improvement of conditions in hospitals of developing nations.

Today, Engineering World Health has bloomed into a national organization with chapters at schools around the country. Since the announced partnership with Duke University in 2004, EWH has continued to expand and create new initiatives, including the CUREs program and the Design for the Developing World class being taught currently at Duke.