Headquarters staff
Elena Albanes has worked for 29 years as a financial manager and financial analyst for USAID programs. Before joining AED 10 years ago, Elena worked for the USAID Mission's office of the Controller in El Salvador for 19 years as a Financial Analyst, Senior Accountant and Chief of the Voucher Examination Section. Elena is currently the Alive & Thrive (A&T) Senior Financial Manager. She is fluent in English and Spanish.
Jean Baker is the Project Director for A&T. She has worked more than 30 years in international public health. She spent 15 years on the management and implementation of nutrition, health, and family planning programs in Pakistan, Thailand, Kenya, and Nepal. From 1995-1996 Jean served as director of Wellstart International’s Expanded Promotion of Breastfeeding Project and from 1996-2005 as director of the LINKAGES Project, a global program to improve infant and young child feeding practices. Immediately prior to A&T, Jean was the project director of A2Z, the USAID Micronutrient and Child Blindness Project. AED managed the LINKAGES and A2Z projects, both funded by USAID.
Andres Chavarriaga is the Senior Finance Associate for A&T HQ. He previously provided budget support on other projects at FHI 360. Andres holds a degree in information systems, administration, and finance and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in finance at Johns Hopkins University. His main responsibilities include the Bangladesh field office finances and the financial management of A&T Partners.
William Dean is a Senior Project Associate at HQ. He provides operations, management, and logistical support to HQ and country field offices. He has backstopped and provided program support for two other projects at AED and FHI 360. Will has a bachelor's degree in international studies and economics from Michigan State University.
Ann Jimerson is the Senior Specialist for Community Outreach at A&T Headquarters. For over 20 years, she has applied her creative skills to sharpen programs in child health and nutrition, breastfeeding, obesity prevention, sexual health, aging, health literacy, health insurance access, physical activity, nutrition for older Americans, and more. Her specialty is applying formative research findings to develop program strategies and materials that help people adopt positive behaviors. Ann was part of the AED team that developed the BEHAVE Framework, a simple tool that helps program planners change the way they look at strategic planning for behavior change.
Kelly Josiah is the Contracts and Procurement Specialist at HQ. She worked two years in AED’s Contracts Department and then managed the Child Blindness Program for the A2Z Project. Her experience also includes working as a policy analyst in the international division of the U.S. auditing regulator and as a corporate paralegal. Kelly has a bachelor's degree from the University of NC-Chapel Hill in business administration and a master's from Georgetown University in foreign affairs.
Karin Lapping is the Senior Nutrition Advisor for A&T seconded by Save the Children (SC). Karin has spent the past twelve years working in international health. Karin started her career at SC working in the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan. From 2001-2003 Karin was coordinator of SC’s Positive Deviance informed programs. From 2003-2006 Karin assumed the role of School Health and Nutrition (SHN) Advisor and Team Leader and directed the SHN global portfolio. From 2006-2009 Karin lived and worked in Hanoi, Viet Nam, first as the Country Coordinator for the Mainstreaming Nutrition Initiative and most recently as the Asia Area Nutrition Advisor for SC. Karin also served as a nutritionist on the SC emergency response teams in Ethiopia and Darfur. In addition to Viet Nam and Pakistan Karin has lived in Nepal and Zimbabwe. Karin holds an MPH from Emory University in infectious disease and is currently completing what will be a decade long PhD from Tufts University in food policy and applied nutrition. Her research focuses on stunting in Viet Nam.
Kaia Lenhart is the advocacy director for A&T at GMMB, leading the firm’s expanding portfolio of global health work serving as a senior strategic advisor to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Pneumococcal Awareness Council of Experts (PACE), PATH, United Nations Foundation, and AIDSTAR-One. She has also served as a consultant to the, Initiative for Global Development, UNAIDS, White Ribbon Alliance, Ipas and Health Metrics Network.
Janelle Mackereth is the A&T headquarters Senior Communications & Project Assistant. She graduated from Ithaca College with a BS in communication management and design and a minor in Spanish. While attending school, she worked as a marketing assistant and as a graphic designer. She also provided marketing and communications assistance to several non-profits in the community and co-led an initiative to teach media literacy at local elementary schools.
Luann Martin is the Communications Specialist for A&T. She has worked on infant and young child feeding issues for more than 20 years, first as a consultant for UNICEF in Pakistan and then as a technical writer and program manager for Nurture/Center to Prevent Childhood Malnutrition. From 1996-2006 she managed the development of technical publications and the documentation of program experience for the LINKAGES infant and young child feeding project at AED. She also provided communications support to the A2Z micronutrient project, prepared breastfeeding case studies for UNICEF and WHO, and for several years managed AED’s safe motherhood and newborn advocacy activities using the REDUCE and ALIVE evidence-based models. Luann lived in Ghana, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Pakistan. She has her M.A. degree in international development.
Purnima Menon leads M&E activities in Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Viet Nam for A&T from IFPRI’s Asia office in New Delhi, India. She is a Research Fellow in IFPRI’s Poverty, Health and Nutrition Division, and conducts nutrition research, with a focus on maternal and child nutrition. Dr. Menon previously was a Research Associate in the Division of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell University, where she co-directed a multi-country study to develop and understand policy and program strategies for mainstreaming nutrition in health policies and programs. From 2001 to 2006, Dr. Menon coordinated a collaborative research project to evaluate an integrated food and nutrition program with IFPRI, Cornell University, and World Vision-Haiti. Dr. Menon holds a PhD in International Nutrition from Cornell University and a MSc in Nutrition from the University of Delhi.
Tika Jaishi-Neupane, Finance Associate, is responsible for backstopping Viet Nam finances. She has 18 years experience in program administration and finance with the United Nations and various non- profit organization within the U.S. and overseas. Tika worked for the AED- ARTS Accounting Department before joining the A&T. She also has worked with Global Health Council in Washington DC, UNICEF Regional Office for South Asia, Kathmandu, DFID-Nepal Program, Kathmandu, OXFAM-Nepal, and Action Aid Nepal, Kathmandu. She holds bachelor’s degree in accounting and master’s in sociology from Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, Nepal. She is fluent in English, Hindi, Bengali, and Nepali.
Kate Pritchard, an account supervisor on GMMB’s global health team, coordinates advocacy and communications activities for A&T. While at GMMB, Kate has managed a campaign for Ipas in support of Not Yet Rain, a film about reproductive health in Ethiopia and provided support for projects with the United Nations Foundation, The White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood and the Pneumococcal Awareness Council of Experts (PACE).
Kim Winnard, Senior Program Director for A&T, has spent 30 years managing BCC components of international health programs in family planning, maternal and child health, infant feeding, and avian and pandemic influenza. Seven of those years were overseas, as resident representative for a national FP project in Nigeria, and providing technical assistance to maternal health projects in Kenya, Bangladesh, and Indonesia. Kim was also team leader for LINKAGES’ Mainstreaming, Advocacy, and Information Dissemination (1999-2006). At the onset of his career, Kim served as a Peace Corps Volunteer (Agriculture)/Philippines after receiving his M.A. in International Development.