SRHM team

SECRETARIAT

Eszter Kismödi – Chief Executive

Eszter is an international human rights lawyer specialising in sexuality, sexual and reproductive health and rights, and gender diversity. She has worked in legal and policy development, advocacy and programming in different regions of the world, including Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America. Eszter has been a senior consultant with United Nations agencies, including UNAIDS, UNHCR, UNDP, and OHCHR, and international organisations, such as the World Association for Sexual Health, and international NGOs, such as CREA, where she served as Advocacy Director.  Between 2002 and 2012, she was the Human Rights Adviser at the Department of Reproductive Health and Research of the World Health Organization.

Eszter is a regular guest lecturer at various universities and has published extensively in international journals.  She is a Board Member of Durex’s Global Advisory Board for Sexual Health and Wellbeing, a member of the WHO’s Global Advisory Board on Elimination of Mother and Child Transmission of HIV and Syphilis, and a Board Member of GATE (Global Action for Trans Equality). Previously she served as a member of WHO’s Ethics Review Committee and SRHM’s Editorial Advisory Board.  She has been a Visiting Scholar at Harvard Law School and is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Global Health Justice Partnership of Yale Law School and Yale School of Public Health.  Eszter holds a juris doctor from the University of Pécs and a Master of Laws from the University of Toronto.  A Hungarian national, Eszter is based in Geneva, Switzerland.

Emma Pitchforth – Executive Editor

Emma is a health services researcher who brings social science perspectives to the understanding of key issues in healthcare delivery and people’s experience of healthcare. She has nearly 20 years postdoctoral research experience in academic and non-academic research organisations. Her work, increasingly at the level of health policies and systems, focuses on maternal, sexual and reproductive health and antimicrobial resistance. Previously Co-Editor-in-Chief of the open-access online journal Globalization and Health, Emma is passionate about bringing together diverse interdisciplinary perspectives to understand key concerns relevant to Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters. She brings experience of working at the research/policy interface including in a previous role of Associate Director at RAND Europe. Currently Associate Professor of Primary Care at the University of Exeter, Emma has experience in diverse healthcare settings including Ethiopia, Bangladesh, India, Nigeria, remote and rural Scotland and the UK more broadly. She is the co-Chair of the Exeter Women’s Health Research Group and is Senior Journal Editor for the NIHR Global Health Research Journal. Emma is based in Bristol, UK.

Pete Chapman - Managing Editor
TK Sundari Ravindran - Senior Editor

TK Sundari Ravindran holds a Ph.D. in Applied Economics and served for twenty years as Professor of Public Health at the Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology, Trivandrum.

Sundari’s research interests include gender and intersectional inequities in health, sexual and reproductive health and rights, and social determinants of health. She has been a researcher, activist, and a trainer working at the local and international levels for close to four decades. Sundari is a founder member of Rural Women’s Social Education Centre (RUWSEC), a grassroots women’s health organisation in Tamil Nadu, with which she has been involved since its inception in 1981. She is also a founder-member of CommonHealth, a National Coalition for Reproductive Health and Safe abortion (India).

Pathika Martin – Monitoring Editor

Pathika has been with SRHM (formerly RHM) since 2007, working on most aspects of journal production, distribution and promotion, and coordinating the seven editions of the journal in other languages. Originally a historian, she has worked for non-governmental organisations in the UK and Africa on projects including natural resource management, income generation, oral history and participatory methodologies. Pathika also writes and enjoys bringing her interest in language and usage to bear on finalising papers.

Jessica MacKinnon – Communications Manager

Jessica is an experienced Communications Manager with a demonstrated history of working in the non-profit organization management industry. Jessica has an Honours degree in Political Philosophy and Social Theory and is passionate about community development, public health, gender issues and social justice. She is based in Cape Town, South Africa.

 

Aditi Iyengar - Communications and Advocacy Officer

Aditi Iyengar is a science communication professional who worked as a Senior Science Communicator at Impact Science, Cactus Communications, India, helping researchers disseminate and promote their research findings to  a broader viewership in an engaging way.  Previously, she also worked as a Marketing Specialist at ZEISS India. She has a wide ranging interests, in life sciences, SRHR advocacy, and communication, and has graduated with a Master of Science in Molecular Biology from Manipal University, Karnataka, India and a Master of Science in Law from Northwestern University, Chicago, USA. She is currently based in the United Kingdom.

Amy Guthrie – Operations Manager

Based in London, Amy brings a range of project and operations experience to SRHM, having previously worked with health and advocacy organisations including FPA (formerly the UK Family Planning Association).

TRUSTEES

Jane Cottingham – SRHM Co-Chair, Independent consultant

Jane is an independent consultant and researcher in the field of sexual and reproductive health and rights. From 1994-2009 she worked at the World Health Organization in Geneva as Technical Officer and then Team Coordinator on Gender, Reproductive Rights, Sexual Health and Adolescence at the Department of Reproductive Health and Research, with a particular brief to bring gender and human rights perspectives into the research, policy and programmatic work of the Department. Prior to that Jane founded and worked with Isis Women’s International Information and Communication service, an NGO based in Geneva, now established in Kampala, Uganda, Manila, the Philippines, and Santiago, Chile. She has been a member of SRHM’s Editorial Advisory Board since the beginning of the journal.

Sapna Desai – SRHM Co-Chair, Public Health Specialist

Sapna Desai is a public health specialist whose work focuses on sexual and reproductive health and rights, women’s health and health systems.  Based in New Delhi, India, Sapna is currently a Senior Fellow at the Population Council Institute and an independent consultant. She previously spent several years implementing grassroots programmes with the Self-Employed Women’s Association, India’s largest organisation of women workers. She holds a PhD in epidemiology and population health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and master’s degree from the Harvard School of Public Health.  She has been affiliated with SRHM for over 13 years, in previous roles as an associate editor, editorial advisory board member and co-editor of the South Asia issue.

Sofia Gruskin – Director, Institute on Inequalities in Global Health; Professor, Keck School of Medicine and Gould School of Law, University of Southern California

Professor Gruskin is internationally recognized for her work in global health, in particular her research to foster the development of effective public health policy and programs at the intersection of health, human rights, gender and sexuality. She is recognized as one of the founders of the field linking human rights to health, and a pioneer in demonstrating conceptually, methodologically and empirically the interplay between human rights and health outcomes. Professor Gruskin is currently a Professor in the Department of Preventive Medicine at the Keck School of Medicine, with a joint appointment at the Gould School of Law, the Director of the Program on Global Health and Human Rights, and the Institute for Global Heath.

Mike Mbizvo – Director of the Population Council’s office in Zambia, Senior Associate in the Reproductive Health program

Michael Mbizvo is director of the Population Council’s office in Zambia and a senior associate in the Reproductive Health program. Mbizvo joined the Population Council after serving as director of the Department of Reproductive Health and Research at the World Health Organization (WHO/HQ), where he worked in various capacities for more than 15 years. Mbizvo holds a DPhil in human reproduction and an MPhil in medical sciences from the University of Zimbabwe and an MSc in reproductive sciences from Monash University, Australia. His fields of interest include andrology, male reproductive health, reproductive epidemiology and behaviour, adolescents’ health, gender dynamics, and sexual and reproductive health.

Sarah Hodgson – Finance Specialist

Sarah  is finance professional with over 15 years of experience in the financial services sector. Based in London, Sarah has worked in a various capacities, including risk management, resource management, governance and strategic programme delivery.

 

Julia Hussein

Julia originally trained as an obstetrician and gynaecologist in Ireland and the UK. She developed an interest in global public health obstetrics and implemented maternal mortality reduction programmes for UNICEF, the UK government and non-government organisations in Asia and sub Saharan Africa. On returning to the UK, Julia conducted research focusing on maternity services and quality improvement in low and middle income countries. She was actively engaged in editorial work for various international journals on women’s health and was a past editorial board member and editor in chief at SRHM. She is now based in Scotland.

ASSOCIATE EDITORS

Laura Ferguson – Associate Director, Program on Global Health & Human Rights; Assistant Professor at the Institute for Global Health at the Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California

Laura is an assistant professor of preventive medicine at the University of Southern California and the associate director of the Program on Global Health & Human Rights at the USC Institute for Global Health. With a focus on low-income countries, Laura’s research focuses on the intersection between health and human rights; specifically, sexual and reproductive health, HIV, child and adolescent health; and ranges from grassroots efforts to global policy. She is committed to ensuring the dissemination of diverse voices and empirical studies on sexual and reproductive health and rights from around the world to inform policy, programs and positive change.

Mindy Jane Roseman – Director of International Law Programs and Director of the Gruber Program for Global Justice and Women’s Rights, Yale Law School

As both a researcher and advocate, Mindy specializes in international health and human rights, particularly as they relate to gender, sexuality, and reproduction. She has fostered the development of health and human rights norms, as well as their implementation, at the international and national level. Prior to joining Yale Law, Mindy was the Academic Director of the Human Rights Program and a Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School from 2005-2016 where she taught courses on gender and human rights, as well as reproductive health and justice. Mindy was also an instructor in the Department of Population and International Health at Harvard School of Public Health. Before joining Harvard, Mindy was a staff attorney with the Center for Reproductive Rights in New York, in charge of its East and Central European program.

Nina Sun – Human Rights Lawyer and Deputy Director, Global Health and Human Rights – Dornsife School of Public Health, Drexel University

A specialist in health and human rights, Nina spent several years at UNAIDS, where she worked on the Human Rights and Law portfolio at the global level and in Asia and the Pacific. Her work focused on scaling-up access to justice initiatives, reducing HIV-related stigma and discrimination and increasing effective global advocacy. She has also worked most recently at the Center for Reproductive Rights’ Geneva office, where she was responsible for advocacy with UN human rights mechanisms, as well as partnerships with international organisations. She has also worked with the World Health Organisation and the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health.

Atsumi Hirose – Teaching Fellow in Global Health, Imperial College London, UK; Affiliated researcher, Department of Global Public Health, Karolinska Istitutet, Sweden

Atsumi is an epidemiologist and educator in global maternal and newborn health with over 10 years experience. As an epidemiologist, she has designed and implemented maternal and newborn health research in low- and middle-income countries, such as Afghanistan, Nigeria, Uganda and Tanzania. She has a particular interest in improving pregnancy outcomes, having examined maternal health care uptake, measured quality of intrapartum care and assessed effects of health system interventions for quality improvement.
Additionally, Atsumi is an educator in global maternal and newborn health, having developed the reproductive, maternal and newborn health modules for the life course public health specialisation for master students at Imperial College London and has an interest in building capacity for less experienced researchers.

Ramya Kumar- Senior Lecturer at the Department of Community and Family Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Jaffna
Ramya holds a medical degree from the University of Peradeniya, an MSc in Global Health and Population from the Harvard School of Public Health, a MSc in Community Medicine from the University of Colombo and a PhD in Public Health Sciences from the University of Toronto. Her current research interests include access to healthcare, gender and health, the politics of global health, decolonizing global health, and applying critical feminist methodologies to health research. Ramya has authored several academic articles on health policy and health reform and writes regularly in the local media to further her commitments to social justice. She is also a member of the Kuppi Collective, a group of academics committed to preserving free public education in Sri Lanka.

REGIONAL HUBS

Bouchra Assarag - Director of the SRHM Francophone Africa Regional Hub

Dr. Bouchra Assarag is a physician with a PhD in public health. She is an expert on sexual and reproductive health rights and active member of national and international civil associations in the field of SRHR. She is President of the association Together for Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights (EDSSR), based in Morocco.

 

Vincent De Brouwere - Editor of the Francophone Africa Regional Hub

Vincent De Brouwere is Professor Emeritus at the Department of Public Health, Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp since May 2018. He has field experience of over 15 years in low- and middle income countries. He has worked in short term visits in a variety of countries in Africa and Asia. His main research domains include maternal health, quality of health care and health care systems.

EDITORIAL AND ADVISORY BOARD 

Avni Amin – Scientist on Gender-based Violence, WHO, Department of Reproductive Health and Research, Switzerland
Luisa Cabal 
– Special Adviser for Human Rights and Gender at UNAIDS, Switzerland
Mauro Cabral – Executive Director, GATE, Argentina
Lidia Casas – Professor of Law, Facultad de Derecho, Universidad Diego Portales, Chile
Marilen J. Danguilan – Social Health Advisor, Salubris Medical Center; Population Services of the Philippines Inc, Philippines
Vincent De Brouwere – Professor of Public Health ,Institute of Tropical Medicine, Belgium
Thérèse Delvaux – Senior researcher, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Belgium
Patrick Eba – Country Director, UNAIDS, Central African Republic
Shereen El Feki – Regional Director, Middle East and North Africa, Promundo, Canada
Faysal El Kak – Senior lecturer, Faculty of Health Sciences (FHS), American University of Beirut (AUB), Lebanon
Mahmoud F. Fathalla – Professor of Obstetrics & Gynaecology, Faculty of Medicine, Assiut University, Egypt
Tine Gammeltoft – Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Claudia García-Moreno Esteva – Medical Officer, Team Leader Violence against women,WHO, Switzerland
Alexandra Garita – Independent consultant, Mexico
Ana Cristina González Vélez – Independent consultant, researcher and international advisor in public health, Colombia
Sharad Iyengar – Senior Coordinator and Chief Executive, Action Research Training for Health, India
Shireen Jejeebhoy – Independent researcher, India
Candace Johnson – Professor of Political Science, University of Guelph, Canada
Katrina Karkazis – Carol Zicklin Chair, Honors Academy, Brooklyn College, CUNY USA
Gunta Lazdane – Director of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Institute of Public Health, Riga Stradins University, Latvia
Address Malata – Vice Chancellor, Malawi University of Science and Technology, Malawi
Allan Maleche – Executive Director at Kenya Legal and Ethical Issues Network on HIV and AIDS (KELIN)
Affette McCaw-Binns – Professor of Reproductive Health and Epidemiology, University of the West Indies, Jamaica
Alice Miller – Associate Professor (Adjunct) of Law at Yale Law School, the Co-Director of the Global Health Justice Partnership, Yale University, USA
Wanda Nowicka – Lecturer, Institute of Applied Sciences, Warsaw University; Chair, Equality and Modernity Association, Poland
Jeffrey O’Malley – Senior Advisor, LGBTI Inclusion, Africa, UNDP, South Africa
Juliet Richters – Honorary Visiting Professor, Sexual Health Program, Kirby Institute, University of New South Wales, Australia
Judit Sándor – Professor, Faculty of Political Science, Legal Studies and Gender Studies of the Central European University (CEU), Hungary
Gita Sen – Director, Ramalingaswami Centre on Equity & Social Determinants of Health, Public Health Foundation of India
Iqbal Shah – Principal Research Scientist, Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, USA
Tom Shakespeare – Professor of Disability Research, International Centre for Evidence in Disability, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK
Heidi Stöckl – Director of the Gender Violence & Health Centre, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK
Johanne Sundby – Professor, Institute of Community Medicine, University of Oslo, Norway
Sylvia Tamale – Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Makerere University, Uganda

Past Language Editors:

ARABIC Hala El-Damanhoury – Obstetrics / gynaecology consultant and researcher in reproductive health and rights, Egypt
CHINESE Mengchun Jia – Professor at the National Research Institute for Family Planning, China
HINDI Shalini Singh – Advocate, Program Manager, Training and Institute at CREA, India
PORTUGUESE Ana Paula Portella – Independent consultant and researcher, Brazil
RUSSIAN Lyubov Erofeeva
SPANISH Ruth Iguiñiz-Romero – Assistant Professor, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, Peru

Founding Editors:
Marge Berer and TK Sundari Ravindran

Immediate Past Editor:
Julia Hussein