Dear Colleagues,

2015 – a new year begins with excitement and change: a new professional will join IHD as our MNCH Strategic Lead, and a treasured colleague will follow a unique opportunity and her dream, and in so doing, decide to leave Abt in early February.

As many of you are aware, last year Nancy Nachbar, Principal Associate/Scientist and Malaria Technical Lead, started her own company, Nancy Nachbar and Associates, LLC -  which concentrates on leadership development, coaching, strategic planning, and public health technical assistance.  With a wonderful new business opportunity on the horizon, Nancy has made the decision to focus her energies on growing and developing  her company in 2015.  Nancy joined Abt in 2011 and has made many contributions.  She played leading roles on the recent AIRS2 win, the Kenya IRS2 win, and the DFID Reproductive Health Framework IDIQ win, and supported other bids in IHD and IEG.  She participated in the team that recommended some of the changes we see in IHD today.  As the malaria technical lead, Nancy developed Abt’s malaria strategy, helped expand the Health Finance and Governance Project’s (HFG) malaria portfolio and oversaw a team of researchers whose work is demonstrating the value of sustained investment in malaria interventions.  She also managed Abt’s IRS work in Kenya for a period.  In her work with the Roll Back Malaria Partnership (RBM), Nancy has helped to guide the Partnership’s direction.  Although malaria has been her main focus, Nancy also has provided technical assistance in nutrition, BCC, and child health.  Most recently, she assisted SHOPS to distill lessons learned from work undertaken with the private sector. As some of you have experienced, Nancy helped mentor and guide Abt colleagues at various stages of their careers, so her choice to more fully pursue leadership development and coaching work comes as no surprise.  Nancy has promised to stay in touch and we wish her all the best, confident that her business will be a success. You can be certain, we will find ways to partner with Nancy Nachbar and Associates, so we can continue to tap into her invaluable talent.

I am also extremely pleased to announce that Judith Moore will be joining the International Health Division as a Principal Associate / MNCH Strategic Lead later this month. Judith is a nurse/midwife with more than 30 yrs experience in public health programming with a focus on women and children. She has worked in a clinical and technical advisory capacity for both UK and USA governments, as well as major NGO’s, including 16 years with Save the Children UK and USA. She also served as the senior technical advisor on the Gates-funded Saving Newborn Lives grant, worked with John Snow Inc.  on the USAID Child Survival Program BASICS, and provided MNCH program management overseas for JHPIEGO. Judith has taught clinical midwifery, trained health workers, been deployed to several major humanitarian emergencies, and served in diverse program management roles and as a technical advisor at country, regional and headquarters levels. She has lived and worked in 6 developing countries and been involved with supporting many more programs in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Judith comes from a position as Senior Director for Women and Children’s Health at Project HOPE, where she gained further experience with private sector initiatives, including working with major corporations. She has a MSc degree in Public Health from the UK, a Diploma in Tropical Medicine from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and a fellowship in Epidemiology from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA. Judith is excited to be joining Abt Associates and working to strengthen and expand our MNCH portfolio in both the public and private sectors.  Judith’s office will be next to Diana’s on the 5^th floor so please stop in and welcome her, or send her an email!

Diana

Diana R. Silimperi, MD

Divisional Vice President, International Health

4550 Montgomery Ave., Suite 800

Bethesda, MD 20814

Tel: 301-634-1856