Dr. Wisal Ahmed

 

Dr. Wisal Ahmed is a medical professional and public health expert with over two decades of extensive experience in addressing women's health concerns in resource-limited areas across ten African countries.

Alongside her clinical assistant professorship at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington, she holds an MPH in Epidemiology and a PhD in Implementation Science from the same institution. Her expertise ranges from program design, implementation to evaluation including research in diverse health topics.

Dr. Ahmed has held leadership positions in international organisations, governmental and non-governmental entities, and academia. Her focus of work for last seven years has been mainly on female genital mutilation (FGM) working with the World Health Organisation (WHO), in strengthening health sector response to address FGM in 15 countries and currently United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Global Coordinator for the UNFPA-UNICEF Joint Programme on the Elimination of Female Genital Mutilation, a multi-sectoral program operating in 17 countries.

 

 

Dr. Angela Akol

Angela Akol, MD, PhD, is a resourceful development program leader with 20 years’ experience directing and implementing health and development programs at national and community levels in developing countries. Dr. Akol’s cross-cutting skills in research, program leadership and management are expertly applied in her role as the Director of Ipas’s Africa Alliance Office, based in Nairobi, Kenya, covering SRHR programs across East Africa and leading policy advocacy across the continent.  She holds a medical degree, and a PhD in Global Health from the University of Bergen.

 

 

Prof. Dana-Ain Davis

Dána-Ain Davis is Professor of Urban Studies at Queens College and on the faculty of the PhD Programs in Anthropology and Critical Psychology.  She is the director of the Center for the Study of Women and Society at the Graduate Center.

In the last decade, Davis has focused her attention on reproduction, race, and technologies that assist in reproduction. She has written several articles addressing issues of reproduction and racism including, “Obstetric Racism: The Racial Politics of Pregnancy, Labor, and Birthing,” (2019); “Trump, Race, and Reproduction in the Afterlife of Slavery” (2019); “Feminist Politics, Racialized Imagery, and Social Control: Reproductive Injustice in the Age of Obama” with Beth E. Richie and LaTosha Traylor (2017); “The Bone Collectors” (2016); and, “The Politics of Reproduction: The Troubling Case of Nadya Suleman” (2009). She is the author of Reproductive Injustice: Racism, Pregnancy, and Premature Birth (NYU Press 2019). The book received the Eileen Basker Memorial Prize from the Society for Medical Anthropology; The Senior Book Prize from the Association of Feminist Anthropology. In addition, Reproductive Injustice was named a Finalist for the 2020 PROSE Award in the Sociology, Anthropology and Criminology category, given by the Association of American Publisher and received an Honorable mention by The Victor Turner Ethnographic Writing Award Committee of the Society for Humanistic Anthropology.