Building Pipelines for Women’s Leadership in Public Health.

Dr Mayowa Alade is the Special Adviser to the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare in Nigeria. In this role, she provides technical support to various landmark healthcare transformation and reform programs, including the Nigeria Health Sector Renewal Investment Initiative (NHSRII) through the Sectoral Wide Approach, anchored around reducing maternal and child health outcomes in Nigeria; the Human Resources for Health policy/Managed Migration policy; the Social Action Fund, among others.

Prior to this, she worked with the World Bank in Nigeria as a Health Specialist. At the World Bank, she provided technical support to maternal and child health (MCH) programs and health systems strengthening innovations including three large projects – Nigeria State Health Investment Project (NSHIP), the Nigeria Polio Eradication Support Program, Nigeria Immunization Plus and Malaria Progress by Accelerating Coverage and Transforming Services (IMPACT) Project.  Dr Alade interfaced with policymakers from the national and subnational governments and other key stakeholders including development partners like GAVI, Gates Foundation, WHO, USAID, and UNICEF on resource allocation for health, restructuring of health care or administrative institutions, and analyzing existing evidence for better decision making.

Dr. Alade holds a medical degree from the University of Ilorin, Nigeria, a Masters in Public Health (MPH) from the University of Glasgow, UK, and a Doctor of Public Health (DrPH) in Leadership, Management and Policy from Boston University School of Public Health, USA.

Dr. Benjamin is Boston University Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine Jay and Louise Coffman Professor in Vascular Medicine, School of Public Health Professor of Epidemiology, and the inaugural medical campus Associate Provost for Faculty Development. A Framingham Study investigator and Boston Medical Center cardiologist, she is an international leader in the epidemiology atrial fibrillation (AF). She has been continuously NIH funded since 1998 on grants related to AF, vascular function, inflammation, mobile health, and chronic pain with an H-index >200 and >800 publications. An Association of American Physicians Member, she has won national awards for research, education, mentoring, and diversity.

Rosemary Morgan is a Research Professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the Department of International Health and the Associate Chair in Inclusion, Diversity, Anti-Racism, and Equity (IDARE) for the International Health Department. Dr. Morgan co-directs the Gender and Health Summer Institute and Coordinates the Gender and Health Certificate at JHSPH. She is recognized as a specialist in gender analysis in health and health systems research, interventions, and programs and leads projects focusing on gender responsive monitoring and evaluation and women’s leadership.

Dr. Cozier is an investigator on the Black Women’s Health Study (BWHS) and the BWHS Sarcoidosis Study at the Slone Epidemiology Center. Her research interests include social and genetic determinants of health in African-American women — specifically, the influence of psychosocial stressors (e.g., racism, neighborhood socioeconomic status), and genetics in the development of cancer, cardiometabolic, and immune-mediated diseases (sarcoidosis, lupus). Additional research interests include oral health, and the role that religiosity/spirituality and the faith community, particularly the black church, plays in health promotion/disease prevention in the Black community.