Leadership
Ndola Prata, MD, MSc
Dr. Prata is the Director of the Bixby Center for Population, Health & Sustainability, Co-Director of Center of Expertise on Women’s Health, Gender, and Empowerment, a Professor in Residence in Maternal and Child Health and the second holder of the Fred H. Bixby Endowed Chair in Population and Family Planning in the School of Public Health at UC Berkeley. She is a physician and medical demographer from Angola. She earned her medical degree from the University of Angola and an MSc in medical demography from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She practiced medicine in Angola for 10 years and served as head of the Social Statistics Department at the National Institute of Statistics of Angola. Shortly after moving to the US to begin her tenure as a researcher and lecturer at UC Berkeley, she also served as a demographer/analyst for the Centers for Disease Control's Division of Reproductive Health for six years, a role she resumed briefly from 2010 to 2011.
Her research focuses on the design, implementation, and evaluation of maternal, sexual and reproductive health interventions that maximize distribution and financing to increase access to care, contraceptives and abortion in developing countries, particularly for underserved populations. Her projects investigate strategies for harnessing existing resources, including human capacity and health care infrastructure while also gathering evidence for setting priorities on national health agendas. She leads research and programs for youth that seek to understand how interventions influence adolescent girls’ outcomes and to empower girls to make healthy choices. In addition to her current research in sub-Saharan Africa, Dr. Prata has conducted projects in Latin America and Central and South Asia.
Dilys Walker, MD
Dr. Walker is Professor, UCSF Obstetrics and Gynecology and Global Health Sciences; Director, Preterm Birth Initiative East Africa; Co-director, Maternal Newborn Health Research Cooperative at UCSF; and President and co-founder of PRONTO International. Dr. Walker works jointly in the Obstetrics and Gynecology, and Global Health Sciences departments at UCSF. Dr. Walker is also affiliate faculty at UC Berkeley and a visiting Professor in Reproductive Health at the National Institute of Public Health in Mexico. Her principal research involves implementation trials addressing issues related to quality of antenatal and obstetric care, designing and implementing innovative provider training strategies using highly realistic simulation and team-training as well as group models of antenatal care. Dr. Walker is the Principal Investigator on global maternal and neonatal health focused grants and collaborates with partners in India, Kenya, Uganda, Mexico, and Guatemala. Purnima Mane, PhD is an internationally respected expert on SRH who served as the President and CEO of Pathfinder International, a post she held from 2012 to 2016. Other earlier appointments include United Nations Assistant Secretary-General; Deputy Executive Director of Programs at UNFPA; and Director of Policy, Evidence and Partnership for the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS). She currently serves as an expert advisor to the development of the UC Berkeley/UCSF adolescent pregnancy initiative.
Purnima Mane, PhD
Dr. Mane is an internationally respected expert on SRH who served as the President and CEO of Pathfinder International, a post she held from 2012 to 2016. Other earlier appointments include United Nations Assistant Secretary-General; Deputy Executive Director of Programs at UNFPA; and Director of Policy, Evidence and Partnership for the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS). She currently serves as an expert advisor to the development of the UC Berkeley/UCSF adolescent pregnancy initiative.