About Me
I am a medical doctor and public health specialist with over a decade’s experience advising governments, bilateral and multilateral agencies, and civil society on building sustainable and equitable health systems.
My career spans clinical practice, clinical trial research, scaling up public health interventions, and policy and advocacy across reproductive and maternal health, HIV, and nutrition. My approach is three-fold: 1) support evidence-based, efficient and effective programs, with a focus on the furthest behind first; 2) translate learning into policy and routine service delivery and 3) support (co)financing mechanisms for scale-up of proven interventions.
I am driven by designing systems that work for everyone, particularly the most vulnerable. I believe in the cross-cutting role that health plays. A consistent thread throughout my work has been integrating climate change and social protection into health and nutrition programming and policy, recognizing that resilient health systems can't be built in isolation from the broader risks communities face.
I have worked with organizations including ICAP at Columbia University, Irish Aid, and the World Bank, and have lived and worked in Tanzania, Switzerland, and Papua New Guinea — leading programmes and advisory engagements across East Africa and the Pacific.
My Story
I lost both my parents to HIV when I was very young, a loss which drove my desire to become a doctor, first providing clinical care to patients with TB and HIV in Tanzania.
During this time, I realized no clinician, however committed, can outwork a broken system — so much of a patient's outcome is already decided by the system around them. That realization moved me from clinical practice into public health policy and systems work.
Having lived the consequences of inadequate access to healthcare myself, building equitable, sustainable health systems isn't an abstract goal for me. I know firsthand what's at stake when systems fail the people who depend on them — and that conviction still drives everything I do today.
Outside of work, I enjoy spending time with my family and friends. I love cooking new dishes and hosting people around the table, and I find a lot of peace in long walks through the forest near home.
