Adebiyi O. Adesina
Senior Economist

Dr. Adebiyi O. Adesina joined Avenir Health in 2010. He has over ten years of policy analysis and health systems management in HIV/AIDS and reproductive health. At Avenir Health, Dr. Adesina is involved in designing and implementing the analysis and synthesis of data addressing issues related to the economics of HIV/AIDS, family planning and maternal and child health, including cost analyses, cost-effectiveness studies, and resource investment in health. His work also includes developing projections of global demand for ARVs and building analytical tools for program managers and policymakers. His field experience include India, Kenya, Mexico, Nicaragua, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

Before joining Avenir Health, he was a visiting scholar at the National Institute of Public Health, Mexico (Instituto Nacional de Salud Publica) where he conducted research on supply chain management and demand forecasting of ARVs. He has also worked in domestic family planning as a regional program manager for Title X, the United States program for low income communities.

Dr. Adesina received a Dr.P.H. and M.P.H. in health policy and management from University of California, Berkeley’s School of Public Health. He also received his Bachelor of Arts degree from UC Berkeley in Peace Studies. He speaks English, Yoruba and Spanish.

Nicole Bellows
Senior Associate

Dr. Nicole Bellows joined Avenir Health as a Senior Associate in the Washington DC office in 2018.

Prior to joining Avenir Health, Nicole worked as a consultant for eight years in Zambia and Kenya, supporting many organizations on projects related to reproductive health, malaria, HIV, and infectious diseases. Some of Nicole’s former clients include PSI, Marie Stopes International, Population Council, GOAL, DfID, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Nicole holds a Ph.D. in Health Services and Policy Analysis from the University of California, Berkeley’s School of Public Health.

Joseph Corlis
Senior Economist

Dr. Corlis joined Avenir Health as a Senior Economist in 2023.

Joseph has been working at HSPH under a Gates grant doing the costing of Mozambique’s 5th National Strategic Plan for HIV, as well as providing TA to build capacity in HIV planning and budgeting in other countries. Joseph also recently co-authored Sri Lanka’s National HIV/STI Strategic Plan 2023-2030. Before his DrPH studies, Joseph worked for both PSI and MSH. Joseph's initial responsibilities will be on the LHSS Namibia ABC/M costing activity, as well as being involved with the new AFS contract, particularly in the area of resource alignment. He lives in Virginia, and is fluent in French and Portuguese.

Joseph has a DrPH from Harvard School of Public Health, as well as an MPH from University of Fortaleza in Brazil.

Kristin Bietsch
Senior Demographer

Kristin Bietsch joined Avenir Health in 2017. She works on various family planning, child health, and HIV projects.

Prior to joining Avenir Health, she worked as a Research Associate at Population Reference Bureau. Dr. Bietsch has a Ph.D. in Demography from Princeton University, her dissertation work focused on measuring male attitudes and use of family planning across sub-Saharan Africa.

Lori A. Bollinger
Vice President

Dr. Lori A. Bollinger is currently Vice President at Avenir Health, performing both technical and management tasks on various projects. Her technical expertise includes model development, econometric and statistical analysis, economics of HIV/AIDS, costing for reproductive health, and other resource allocation analyses.

Prior to Avenir Health, she worked at Futures Group, where her work included participating in developing and documenting various models, including a model to examine the costs and benefits of Prevention of Mother-To-Child Transmission interventions (PMTCT); a model to utilize in planning resource allocation and cost-effectiveness for HIV/AIDS (Goals); a cost-benefit model examining the trade-off between syndromic management and rapid testing for STIs; the Resource Needs Model, which calculates the resources needed to respond to the HIV/AIDS epidemic; and the costing component of the Safe Motherhood model, along with other models.

She has also been involved extensively in various studies examining the socioeconomic impact of HIV/AIDS, as well as various efforts to cost out the required response, including the estimates used by UNAIDS for global advocacy efforts. Alongside model development and research into the socioeconomic impact of HIV/AIDS, Dr. Bollinger has field-tested and applied these models in various countries. Her specific field experience includes China, Russia, Mexico, Uganda, Lesotho, Honduras, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, Jamaica and Panama.

Prior to her work at Futures Group, Dr. Bollinger taught graduate and undergraduate economics and statistics courses at Wesleyan and Yale Universities for several years. Dr. Bollinger has a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania, an M.Sc. in Economics from the University of York, England, and an M.A. in International Studies from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy from Tufts University, Massachusetts.

Nadia Carvalho
Senior Associate

Nadia Carvalho is a Senior Associate at Avenir Health with close to 15 years of international health technical and programmatic experience in the areas of HIV/AIDS, reproductive and maternal health. Her technical expertise is in the areas of policy development/analysis, evidence-based advocacy, abortion and stigma, and she has field experience in Nepal, China, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Thailand. She holds an MPH degree from George Washington University in Washington DC, and is a DrPH candidate.

Before joining Avenir Health, Nadia was the Associate Director of Field Operations at Venture Strategies Innovations in California where she provided strategic direction, programmatic and technical oversight to the implementation of maternal and reproductive health programs and staff in Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Burundi, Niger, and Botswana. Between 2004-2011 she served as ANE Regional Manager and Senior Policy Advisor with Futures Group in Washington DC where she was responsible for management of the ANE portfolio including HIV/AIDS programs with the ASEAN Secretariat, and in several countries. Prior to that Nadia worked at USAID in Nepal as a Public Health Specialist for HIV/AIDS and Infectious Diseases.

John Davis
Global Health Associate

John Davis, a member of Avenir's Modeling, Planning, and Policy Analysis division since 2023, specializes in disease modeling and health impact analysis. His role extends to supporting the development and upkeep of DMPPT 2 as well as PrEP M&E within the MOSAIC consortium.

Transitioning from a background as a product development engineer, John has been involved in disease transmission modeling since 2018. His contributions include COVID-19 modeling for health resource planning in southern California, HIV modeling for policy planning tools servicing PWID, and malaria modeling focusing on optimal case-finding strategies.

John volunteers his spare time with KiloWatts for Humanity, an energy access nonprofit where he leads M&E activities.

John graduated with a B.S. from the University of Washington in 2016 and earned his M.S. from the University of California, San Diego in 2020.

Rachel Esra, Ph.D

Rachel has joined Avenir Health in 2023. Rachel Esra has been at Imperial College where she has helped to develop and support the Naomi model which is used to make subnational estimates of HIV indicators. She will continue the same work at Avenir. Rachel recently defended her PhD in Global Public Health from the University of Geneva. Her thesis topic was "Machine learning to predict behavioural patterns relating to HIV treatment adherence".

Rudolph Chandler
Health Economist

Rudolph Chandler joined Avenir Health in 2011 and works as a Senior Economist in the Health Policy Project managed by the Futures Group. Mr. Chandler has worked over 20 years as a health economist, private sector and organizational development specialist working for John Short Associates, Academy for Educational Development, The Futures Group, Management Sciences for Health and Abt Associates. He has also been an independent consultant for seven years working for AusAID, NZAID, DfID and Global Fund contractors and directly with UNAIDS, WHO, the World Bank and the GAVI Alliance. He has extensive experience in costing and financing interventions and programs of immunization, HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, family planning, reproductive health as well as health systems strengthening and medium term expenditure framework (MTEF).

Mr. Chandler also has expertise in providing costing, resource allocation and budgeting expertise to countries in preparation of funding proposals and during final negotiations with global financing mechanisms (Global Fund, the GAVI Alliance). Mr. Chandler has also worked with expenditure tracking tools and national health accounts (NHA). As a private sector specialist, he has assessed private sector participation in the delivery of health products and services and has implemented social marketing projects, provider networks, corporate social responsibility, and public private partnerships schemes. Specifically as a private sector specialist, he has developed business and marketing plans and financial sustainability strategies for products and services of for-profit and not-for-profit clients. As an organizational development consultant, he has provided management consulting services in reviewing and redesigning core functions and structures, staffing organizational charts, job descriptions, operations manuals and procedures for grant management for social marketing organizations, principal recipients and country coordinating mechanisms.

Mr. Chandler's experience spans over 35 countries in Central America, the Caribbean, Sub Saharan Africa, Northern Africa and Middle East, South East Asia, the South Pacific and Mongolia. Mr. Chandler holds a Masters in Development Economics from Northeastern University. He speaks English, Spanish, French and Haitian Creole.

Rachael Church
Research and Analysis

Rachael Church joined Avenir Health in 2023 as a Researcher with the DHS Program. She received her MPH in Global Health Program Design, Monitoring, and Evaluation from The George Washington University in 2022. Previously, Rachael worked in knowledge management at Management Sciences for Health and has held several research and data management roles throughout her education in topic areas including malaria, primary healthcare costing, and COVID-19 control.

Willyanne DeCormier Plosky, DrPH
Senior Policy Analyst

Willyanne DeCormier Plosky was employed at Avenir Health between 2007-2013 as a Policy Analyst, and re-joined Avenir in 2016 as a Senior Policy Analyst.

Dr. DeCormier Plosky has over 10 years of experience working in Global Health. Most immediately prior to her tenure with Avenir Health, she worked with the Health, Nutrition, and Population sector at the World Bank to coordinate strategic policy and action upon both topical (malaria, malnutrition, AIDS, etc.) and systemic health issues (governance, hospital reform, financing, human resources, etc.) through lending, analytical work, and partnerships. Ms. Decormier Plosky has also worked with the Management and Leadership program at Management Sciences for Health, the nutrition divisions at Save the Children and UNICEF, and with the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS at Yale University.

Dr. DeCormier Plosky obtained her DrPH from Columbia University (2017), her dissertation entitled: “An investment case of addressing the social drivers of structural stigma and discrimination against refugees in resource-poor urban areas”. Her MPH is from Yale University (2003), and her B.A. is from Bowdoin College (1998). She speaks English fluently, and is moderately proficient in Spanish and French.

Jeffrey Edmeades
Senior Demographic and Health Research Analyst

Jeff Edmeades joined Avenir Health in 2021 and is now a Senior Demographic and Health Research Analyst with the DHS Program. Here, he conducts analytical studies on demographic and health issues and provides training and technical assistance in data analysis to DHS Fellows and collaborators. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was trained as a social demographer. Prior to working with the DHS Program, he worked at the International Center for Research on Women and founded Demografix, an independent consultancy business focused on providing research and strategic services related to gender and health, women's empowerment, program evaluation and adolescent sexual and reproductive health.

Priya Emmart
Senior Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist

Priya Emmart is a Senior Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist for Avenir Health in the Center for Monitoring & Evaluation and Advocacy. She is the Deputy Director of the Track20 Project and provides technical support to other reproductive health projects. Her areas of expertise include health policy analysis and capacity development, contraceptive security, maternal health with a broader interest in health equity research.

She has over 15 years of experience in reproductive and maternal health. Before joining Avenir Health, she worked at Johns Hopkins University with the Bill and Melinda Gates Institute. As the Senior M&E Advisor for the Advance Family Planning Project she was responsible for developing the guidance on monitoring and evaluating advocacy interventions and country capacity development. Between 2007 and 2012, she served as a Senior Policy Advisor with Futures Group in Washington D.C. For Futures Group, she was responsible for country program management and capacity development in the use of policy models. At Crown Agents USA she worked for the Partnership for Supply Chain Management as the project’s M&E Advisor. From 2005-2007, she served as a Global Health Fellow/Population Fellow with John Snow, Inc. for the USAID | DELIVER project in Ethiopia and led their work in contraceptive security. In addition to her global health experience, Ms. Emmart has worked for the Baltimore City Health Commissioner as a Perinatal Epidemiologist and in research and social work with the Emergency Department at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

She holds a MPH degree from the Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and a MSW from Smith College, in Massachusetts. Her first degree is in economics from Smith College.

Abigail Fenerty
Software Developer

Abigail Fenerty joined Avenir Health in 2020 as a Software Developer. She will primarily be working on web-application development. Ms. Fenerty has an interest in efficient user interface/experience along with cyber security.

Ms. Fenerty will hold a B.S. in Computer Science with a minor in Mathematics from Central Connecticut State University as of December 2021.

Imelda Zosa Feranil
Senior Policy Analyst

Imelda Zosa Feranil (Inday) who joined Avenir Health in September 2010 has 30 years experience in policy analysis in the population, family planning (FP), and maternal and child health (MCH) fields that began with direct involvement in national policy assessments and national/regional population-development policy and planning activities in the Philippines. Under successive USAID global policy projects, she trained and supported government and nongovernment agencies in various countries in FP-MCH policy analysis and planning activities, including the use of projection models developed by Avenir Health. She has also trained and supported civil society organizations and champions from government and nongovernment agencies in data-based advocacy for improved FP, RH and HIV-AIDS policies and programs. Her skills include:

• Designing and facilitating policy analysis and advocacy training workshops to identify and prioritize policy barriers and to develop advocacy plans to influence policy reform.
• Training and assisting advocacy groups and champions, including those with non-academic or technical backgrounds, to understand population, FP/MCH and HIV/AIDS statistics and research results and their policy implications.
• Training country counterparts to use the results of Spectrum model applications - especially FamPlan and RAPID - in population/FP advocacy, policy development and evaluation, and strategic planning.
• Developing policy analysis guides and advocacy training manuals, presentations, and M&E evaluation frameworks, indicators and guides.
• Conducting research (individually or in a team) to assess the policy environment and document the progress and achievements of advocacy initiatives.
• Assisting researchers in translating their technical findings into simple policy briefs for use in advocacy by civil society and/or government groups.

Robert Glaubius
Senior Analyst and Modeler

Robert Glaubius joined Avenir Health’s Center for Modeling, Planning and Policy Analysis in September 2016. Dr. Glaubius has six years of experience developing and using mathematical HIV epidemic models to assess the population-level impact, cost-effectiveness and drug resistance consequences of public health policy.

Dr. Glaubius received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Washington University in St. Louis, and completed a postdoctoral research fellowship in the Cleveland Clinic’s Departments of Infectious Disease and Quantitative Health Sciences.

Chaitra Gopalappa
Senior Analyst and Modeler

Chaitra Gopalappa joined Avenir Health in August 2012 as a Senior Analyst and Modeler. Her areas of experience include operations research, probability, and simulation modeling of infectious diseases. Prior to joining Avenir Health she worked as a Steven M. Teutsch Prevention Effectiveness Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, GA. At CDC, Chaitra worked with the Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention developing agent-based simulation models to inform national policies for the prevention of HIV/AIDS, including cost-effectiveness analysis of interventions such as linkage to care, and US HIV-epidemic projections under various scenarios of meeting the U.S. National HIV/AIDS Strategy goals.

Chaitra graduated with a Ph.D. degree in Industrial Engineering from the University of South Florida in 2010, where her Ph.D. dissertation work involved analytical modeling for early diagnosis of cancer.

Matthew Hamilton
Senior Analyst and Modeler

Matthew Hamilton joined Avenir Health in 2014 as a Senior Analyst and Modeler. Matt contributed to the development of the TIME model of tuberculosis in Spectrum and the TB component of the OneHealth Tool, in collaboration with the TB Modelling Group at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He also contributed to the development of the Spectrum Malaria model, in collaboration with researchers at the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute and the Malaria Atlas Project at Oxford University.

Matt has eight years of experience in international public health, including field work in more than a dozen countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. He holds an MSc in Biomathematics from North Carolina State University and an MPH from the University of California, Berkeley.

Deepa Jahagirdar
Senior Analyst and Modeler

Deepa joined Avenir Health in the Center for Modeling and Analysis in 2023.

Deepa has worked as a Research Scientist at the Global Burden of Disease Project at IHME where she led work on HIV modeling and used Spectrum and EPP. Most recently she was a Research Engineer at Stanford University where she also worked on HIV modeling. Initially she will be working as part of the team on the Global Fund project to develop strategic plans to address HIV among adolescent girls and young women in Sub-Saharan Africa. She will also be working on the AIM and EPP modeling for the UNAIDS estimates. She is based in Ottawa.

Deepa has a PhD in Epidemiology from McGill University.

Kris Doyon
Software Developer

Kris Doyon joined Avenir Health in 2023 and is currently a Software Developer.

Mr. Doyon is responsible for client side development of LiST and is currently working on LiST Online enhancements.

Mr. Doyon holds a B.A. in social work from the University of Maine and also has a background in web development, math and physics.

Kendall Hecht
Software Developer

Kendall Hecht joined Avenir Health in 2015 and is currently a Software Developer.

Mr. Hecht has worked in many areas of Spectrum and OneHealth. Currently he is working on development of the new STI module, and has been responsible for creation of tools to assist users and developers alike.

Mr. Hecht holds a B.A. in Computer Science with a minor in Economics from Central Connecticut State University.

Katharine Kripke
Senior Health Policy Advisor

Dr. Katharine Kripke joined Avenir Health in early 2012, following over 20 years of experience working on HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis in various capacities. After earning a Ph.D. from Stanford in Immunology (research on HIV) and completing a 3-year postdoctoral fellowship (research on tuberculosis), Dr. Kripke worked as a AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow in the Office of HIV/AIDS at USAID. At USAID, she served as Senior Technical Advisor for HIV Vaccines and Microbicides and also served on the PEPFAR core teams for Kenya and Tanzania. In 2006, she joined the Vaccine Research Program in the Division of AIDS at NIAID, NIH as Assistant Director, focusing on partnerships, communication, and community engagement.

At Avenir Health, Dr. Kripke works on several projects, currently focused on impact and cost-effectiveness modeling of HIV prevention technologies such as voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC), pre-exposure prophylaxis, vaginal microbicides, and vaccines. She is the Technical Lead for modeling on the Health Policy Plus project and leads modeling activities for the OPTIONS and CASPR projects, all USAID projects.

Dr. Kripke speaks English and is proficient in Spanish. She has extensive work experience in sub-Saharan Africa as well as in Eastern Europe and Eurasia.

Guy Mahiane
Senior Statistician and Modeler

Guy Mahiane has recently joined the Avenir Health in the Center for Modeling and Analysis. Dr. Mahiane will be primarily working on various HIV and malaria modeling tasks.

Dr. Mahiane has a Ph.D. in Biostatistics from the Université Paris-Sud and recently finished a post-doctoral fellowship at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health where he worked on mathematical modeling of HIV. He was also a post-doctoral fellow at the South Africa Centre for Epidemiological Modeling and Analysis in South Africa.

Lindsay Mallick
Lead Research Analyst

Lindsay Mallick joined Avenir Health in 2014 as a Research Associate for the DHS Program. She fulfills both lead and support roles in preparing and analyzing data, conducting literature reviews, and report writing for DHS further analysis papers.

Ms. Mallick has over a decade of combined experience and education in international and domestic public health. Prior to joining Futures, Ms. Mallick served as Community Health Volunteer for the Peace Corps in Mauritania, West Africa. She later gained applied health research experience while working as an epidemiologist for the US Military, where she investigated, monitored, and analyzed a variety of public health issues, ranging from infectious disease to behavioral health.

Ms. Mallick has a Masters of Public Health, with a focus in International Health and Development, from Tulane University. She is proficient in French.

Robert Ashton
Senior Software Developer

Robert Ashton joined Avenir Health in 2024 and is currently a a Software Developer.

Mr. Ashton is responsible for the Naomi web interface and the Leapfrog model. Previous to joining Avenir, Mr. Ashton worked at Imperial College London as a Research Software Engineer.

Mr. Ashton holds a MMath in Mathematics from the University of Exeter.

Viviana Camargo
Software Developer

Viviana Camargo joined Avenir Health in 2023 and is currently a Software Developer.

Miss. Camargo is responsible for the client-side development of AIM and is currently working on various AIM Tools for Spectrum Web.

Miss. Camargo holds a B.S. in Computer Science and Design from Northeastern University.

Robert McKinnon
Vice President
Director of Software Development

Robert McKinnon, a founding partner of Avenir Health, is responsible for leading the software development efforts of the company and deployment of public facing web and desktop applications. This includes the management of both internal and external staff comprised of UI/UX designers, software developers and IT specialists.

Mr. McKinnon has over 30 years of experience designing, developing, and supporting computer-based analytical models. Modeling topics include demographic, family planning, HIV/AIDS, maternal and child health, intervention costing and other social and economic issues focused on international public health.

Mr. McKinnon has directed the software implementation of the Spectrum modeling system since inception, which currently spans over 25 years of development and practice. Most recently the migration of Spectrum to a web application including LiST Online and AIM Web. In addition to Spectrum and its interrelated modules, Mr. McKinnon also leads development efforts of Integrated Health Tool, PrEP-it and FPET web applications.

Separate from applications, Mr. McKinnon has been integral in the development of the Impact40, GHCC and Track20 web sites.

Prior to Avenir Health, he worked at Futures Group and held the dual role as Manager of Information Technology and Software Development. Here he was responsible for the entire organization’s information systems. He provided IT solutions and support to meet the technology needs and requirements of the company along with managerial responsibility of IT and software development staff.

Mr. McKinnon holds an M.S. in Computer Information Technology and a B.S. in Computer Science from Central Connecticut State University.

Linda Mielauskas
Director of Finance and Accounting

Linda Mielauskas joined Avenir Health in 2007 with over 30 years’ experience in financial management, contracts, human resources, benefit administration and administrative support.

Prior to Avenir Health Ms. Mielauskas worked at The Futures Group International and held the position of Chief Financial Officer. She was responsible for all financial activities at the TFG Holding level, including preparation of consolidated financial and operational reports as well as summaries and forecasts for future business growth and general corporate economic outlook. As a member of the executive leadership team, she participated in strategic planning and problem solving for the corporation.

Ms. Mielauskas has a Bachelor of Science in public accounting from St. Joseph’s College and a Masters of Business Administration in finance from the University of Connecticut. Ms. Mielauskas is also a CPA and notary public.

Jerry Parks
Country Analyst

Jerry Parks is a Country Analyst at Avenir Health, specializing in reproductive health in Francophone Africa with the Track20 project. He previously worked at the Population Reference Bureau and at PATH on the total market approach, the introduction of DMPA-SC. and the production of reproductive health advocacy materials. He has also worked at the United Nations Population Fund and Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. He holds an M.P.H. from Tulane and speaks French.

Thomas Podkowiak
Senior Software Developer

Thomas Podkowiak joined Avenir Health in 2011 and is currently a Senior Software Developer.

Mr. Podkowiak is one of the lead frontend web developers, developing and stablizing various tools using the backend Spectrum API such as DemProj, AIM, Tuberculosis, and the Integrated Health Tool. He is in charge of maintaining the AvenirHealth and Track20 websites, and worked on VMMC, Naomi, LiST and various web facing applications hosted on the company website.

In the past, Mr. Podkowiak was responsible for maintaining the Infrastructure, Health Financing, Financial Space, and Governance modules of the desktop OneHealth Tool.

Mr. Podkowiak works critically on quality control and eagerly tracks down the source of reported issues in our various applications.

Mr. Podkowiak holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Central Connecticut State University.

Robert Puckett
Senior Software Developer

Robert Puckett joined Avenir Health in 2024 as a Senior Software Developer.

Since 2010, Dr. Puckett has been developing and maintaining software to model HIV epidemics. In that time and with the leadership of Dr. Tim Brown, Dr. Puckett modernized, supported, and maintained the Estimation and Projection Package (EPP) and AIDS Epidemic Model (AEM) software suites. Additionally, Dr. Puckett conducted a multi-year project to adapt the EPP software suite to operate as an online App using Azure cloud infrastructure. Moving forward, Dr. Puckett will continue to maintain and develop EPP in both its application and cloud-based formats.

Dr. Puckett holds a PhD and MS in Computer Science from the University of Hawai`i at Mānoa, a BA in Mathematics from the University of Hawai`i at Hilo, and a BS in Computer Science from the University of Hawai`i at Hilo.

Carel Pretorius
Senior Analyst and Modeler

Dr. Carel Pretorius joined Avenir Health in 2010 a Senior Analyst and Modeler. He leads or contributes to the development and implementation of several models in Spectrum.

Over the last few years Dr. Pretorius steered the Spectrum implementation of the TB Impact Model and Estimates (TIME) and applied it in various studies and projects with TB global partners, including WHO GTB, The Global Fund and the Stop TB partnership.

Dr. Pretorius leads the Spectrum development of several models for non-communicable diseases including models for mental, neurological and substance abuse, models for cancer and other physical conditions such as CVD and lung conditions.

Dr. Pretorius helps to oversee the implementation of all new disease models in Spectrum, including models for malaria, STIs and transmission models for HIV.

Before working at Avenir Dr. Pretorius completed his Ph.D. studies at the University of Stellenbosch and worked as postdoctoral fellow at the South African Centre for Epidemiological Modelling and Analysis (SACEMA). Prior to working at SACEMA and since 1998, Dr. Pretorius worked in other fields of quantitative analysis.

Margaret Reeves
Documentation and Curriculum Manager

Margaret Reeves joined Avenir Health in 2018 as the Documentation and Curriculum Manager. Ms. Reeves has 15 years’ experience promoting data communication and use, and analyzing country-level policies and U.S. policy approaches to further global health development goals. Her technical areas of expertise are reproductive health/family planning and HIV/AIDS, communications, policy analysis, grant management and capacity building.

Prior to joining Avenir Health, Ms. Reeves was a Senior Family Planning Policy Advisor with USAID's office of Population and Reproductive Health. In this role she acted as technical advisor for the Health Policy Plus project and led USAID’s coordination with other donors to support countries’ in developing and implementing Costed Implementation Plans for family planning. Ms. Reeves has also worked as an implementer on three of USAID's flagship policy projects and a USAID-funded HIV grant-making and capacity-building project. In addition, Ms. Reeves spent a year as a Fellow with the Global Health Policy Center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Ms. Reeves received her Masters in Public Administration with a concentration in International Development Management from The George Washington University.

Meghan Reidy
Senior Associate

Meghan Reidy is a Senior Associate with Avenir Health. Since joining Avenir in late 2016, among other things she conducts analysis to support the SHOPS Plus project and provides technical assistance on the OneHealth Tool, LiST, and other projection software. She has over 10 years of experience in malaria, child survival, and reproductive health.

Prior to joining Avenir, she was a Senior Technical Advisor with Population Services International (PSI), where most recently she was responsible for PSI’s portfolio of health impact models (including family planning, HIV, TB, malaria, child survival, and WASH), global-level monitoring of program performance, and analysis to inform strategic policy and programmatic decision making. Previously, she has worked as an independent consultant in access to essential medicines and health policy, with clients such as DFID and the Gates Foundation, and as a policy analyst with the Global Health Group at UCSF.

Ms. Reidy holds masters degrees in Population and International Health from the Harvard School of Public Health and Forensic Archaeological Sciences from University College London.

Mark Roman
Senior Software Developer

Mark Roman joined Avenir Health in 2008 and is currently a Senior Software Developer.

Mr. Roman has worked within many areas of the Spectrum and OneHealth desktop applications. He worked as a frontend developer on the Impact40, PrEP-it, H-LiST, and RADAR Sample Size Calculator web applications. Currently, his primary responsibility is the backend development of the Integrated Health Tool.

Mr. Roman holds a B.A. in Mathematical Sciences from Western New England University.

Rebecca Rosenberg
Data Analyst

Rebecca Rosenberg joined Avenir Health in 2020 as a Data Analyst. She works on the Track20 team providing support and conducting analysis on global family planning projects.

Prior to joining Avenir Health, Dr. Rosenberg worked as a Research Assistant at Tulane University where she supported various projects related to family planning in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She holds a Ph.D. in Public Health from Tulane University.

Rachel Sanders
Director for the Center of Modeling, Planning and Policy Analysis

Rachel Sanders is a Senior Policy Analyst with Avenir Health, and the Deputy Director of the Center for Modeling, Planning and Policy Analysis. She coordinates development and applications of the OneHealth Tool, as well as providing technical assistance on other projection software and cost and cost effectiveness analysis. Her field experience includes work in the Dominican Republic, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, South Africa, Central America, and Nepal and she holds a Masters in Public Policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

Prior to Avenir Health, she worked at Futures Group, where she was most recently the Deputy Director for the Health Policy Initiative Costing Task Order, a project focused on costing and modeling for HIV programs. Her responsibilities in this post included staff supervision, quality assurance of activities, and managerial oversight for operations. During her time at Futures Group she also completed cost analyses of HIV and AIDS treatment programs, estimates of resources required to carry out HIV programs throughout Central America, and analysis of resource allocation strategies. Before joining Futures Group, Ms. Sanders worked in the Evaluation Unit of International Planned Parenthood’s Western Hemisphere Region office, and served as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Dominican Republic.

Jill Wyman
Senior Software Developer

Jill Wyman joined Avenir Health in 2010 and is currently a Senior Software Developer.

Ms. Wyman is primarily responsible for creating high-resolution wireframes for all the new applications being developed by the programming team and for the client-side development of AIM Web and FamPlan Web. She is also responsible for the design, implementation, and maintenance of the Spectrum Help system and the Spectrum and OneHealth Tool Support System.

Ms. Wyman holds a B.S. in Computer Information Systems from DeVry University, a B.A. in Mathematics from Drew University, and an M.S. in Industrial Engineering from Lehigh University.

Jared Schmidt
Software Developer

Jared Schmidt joined Avenir Health in 2015 and is currently a Software Developer.

Mr. Schmidt has worked with in many areas of Spectrum and OneHealth. His primary responsibilities include internal memory management, file reading/writing capabilities and general user interface modification. Mr. Schmidt has also been instrumental with improvements to several tools including Missed Opportunities, Equity, MBB to LiST Transfer, and Extract.

Mr. Schmidt will hold a B.A. in Computer Sciences with a minor in Music from Central Connecticut State University as of Spring 2017.

Matt Szczerba
Software Developer

Matt Szczerba joined Avenir Health as a Software Developer in 2020. Mr. Szczerba is new to the company and will begin working on web-application development. Previously, Mr. Szczerba worked in IT support for several companies.

Mr. Szczerba holds a A.S. in Computer Information Systems from Tunxis Community College and is scheduled to receive his B.S. in Computer Science from Central Connecticut State University in December 2020.

Flor Silvestre
Accounting Assistant

Flor Silvestre joined Avenir Health in 2015 as an Accounting Assistant. Prior to working at Avenir Health she held the position of Payroll Administrator at another company.

Ms. Silvestre has an Associate Degree of Science in Accounting and Business Administration and a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from Post University. She is a certified bookkeeper and a notary public. Ms. Silvestre is fluent in Spanish.

Ann Villacorta
Senior Accountant

Ann Graffini Villacorta joined Avenir in 2024 with over 10 years of accounting experience.

Prior to Avenir Health, Ms. Villacorta has worked for an energy efficiency solutions company. She was responsible for revenue reconciliation, preparation and analysis of financial statements and provided support in HR and administration. She also worked in Dubai for 9 years in various industries such as oil and gas and engineering construction.

Ms. Villacorta has a Bachelor's Degree in Accounting from University of San Jose-Recoletos.

Emily Sonneveldt
Director for the Center of M&E and Advocacy

Dr. Sonneveldt joined Avenir Health in 2009. She currently leads activities that focus on monitoring of health programs, increased data utilization at the national and global levels, and developing and applying innovative tools and models that support data based decision-making. She has extensive experience supporting governments to develop, implement, and monitor health policies, including facilitation of goal setting and priority identification workshops that have resulted in policy and priority changes. She has performed district and national level applications of computer models focusing on family planning, safe motherhood, postabortion care, and the impact of rapid population growth on development. She has worked implementing health programs in Africa and the Balkans and served as a technical advisor for policy, advocacy, and research activities in Africa, the Caribbean, Southern Asia, and Eastern Europe. Her primary areas of expertise are family planning and maternal health.

Previously, Dr. Sonneveldt worked for The Futures Group where she managed multiple country level activities including quantitative and qualitative research and policy analysis and development. She also provided ongoing maternal health technical support to various country programs. During this time she also performed district and national 22level applications of computer models focusing on family planning, safe motherhood, postabortion care, and the impact of rapid population growth on development.

Dr. Sonneveldt has also lived and worked in developing countries and built expertise in developing, monitoring, and evaluating community based health programs; participatory methodologies related to behavior change; impact assessments and quality of service evaluations; and creating linkages between communities and health facilities.

Dr. Sonneveldt has a Ph.D. in Public Health from Tulane University. She is proficient in French.

Yu Teng
Senior Analyst and Modeler

Dr. Yu Teng joined Avenir Health in 2014 as a Senior Analyst and Modeler. He primarily works on applying the AIM and Goals models to study the cost and impact of HIV interventions in different countries and geographic regions.

Dr. Teng earned his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Purdue University. Prior to joining Avenir Health, he worked as a Prevention Effectiveness post-doctoral fellow at Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). At CDC, he worked with the Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention on developing simulation models for HIV transmission in the U.S.

Jessica Williamson
Research Analyst

Jessica Williamson joined Avenir Health in 2016 as a Data Analyst on the Track20 Project. She currently provides technical support and analysis for the Track20 project. Previously, Ms. Williamson worked as an independent consultant conducting data analysis and developing tools for monitoring and reporting, primarily in family planning and reproductive health. Prior to that, Ms. Williamson worked as part of the Impact Analysis team at Marie Stopes International, where she supported internal and external reporting and the use of routine data for decision-making. Ms. Williamson has a Masters of Public Health from George Washington University.

Shubha Kapuganti
Global Health Data Analyst

Shubha has recently graduated with a Master's in public health in Epidemiology from George Washington University. Ms. Shubha has previously worked at PATH and the Department of Health and Human Services.

Peter Stegman
Senior Economist and Managing Director Southern Africa office

Peter Stegman joined Avenir Health in 2011 as Senior Economist and Managing Director of the organization’s Southern Africa office based in Gaborone, Botswana. Prior to this, Mr. Stegman spent eight years seconded to the National AIDS Coordinating Agency (NACA) of the Government of Botswana as their Strategic Planning and Policy Advisor, a position he held through the African Comprehensive HIV/AIDS Partnerships (ACHAP), a public-private partnership between the Government of Botswana, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Merck Company Foundation.

Mr. Stegman has also worked extensively as a consultant for a number of organizations including USAID, UNAIDS, UNDP, DfID, GTZ and Care International supporting governments and organizations in the areas of strategic planning and budgeting, public policy review and development, capacity enhancement, HIV and AIDS mainstreaming, and local level support to program planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation. Mr. Stegman has experience across Sub-Saharan Africa including Botswana, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, and Uganda.

A long-term resident of Africa, Mr. Stegman has spent the last 18 years living and working on the continent. He holds an M.A. in International Affairs/African Studies from the Center for International Studies at Ohio University, and a B.A. in International Affairs from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

John Stover
Vice President

John Stover is Vice President and founder of Avenir Health and served as Avenir Health’s first president. Previously John was a Vice President at Futures Group in the Center for Economics and Modeling. He has over 30 years of experience in assessing population and health issues in developing countries and in providing technical assistance in policy analysis and awareness-raising through computer modeling.

Mr. Stover has worked on a variety of policy and service projects including POLICY, RAPID (Resources for the Awareness of Population Impacts on Development), OPTIONS (for Population Policy), SOMARC (Social Marketing for Change), the EVALUATION (of Family Planning Impact) Project, and PASCA (Central America HIV/AIDS Prevention) Project. He has worked in diverse geographic regions including sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa and the Middle East, Asia and Latin America. He has developed several important population and health policy tools including Spectrum, a modular software package that is used to examine the consequences of current trends and future interventions in reproductive health and AIDS.

Mr. Stover has published and presented numerous articles on population and family planning, AIDS modeling, intervention analysis and demographic impact. He has conducted research on the policy process and is co-author of The Art of Policy Formulation: Experiences from Africa in Developing National HIV/AIDS Policies. He has developed a number of evaluation tools such as the Policy Environment Score, the AIDS Program Effort Index, and the Survey of Coverage of Essential HIV/AIDS Services.

Mr. Stover has remarkable experience in presenting population, health and development information to high-level policy makers, including to a number of national leaders. He has provided assistance to programs in numerous countries, where policy presentation teams have used computer-based presentations successfully to reach thousands of individuals from national and local governments, NGOs and other community leaders.

Mr. Stover earned a master’s degree in long-range planning from Campus Free College, and a B.S. in chemistry at the Case Institute of Technology of Case Western Reserve University.

Michel Tchuenche
Senior Health Specialist

Dr. Michel Tchuenche has been a Professor of Mathematics at the University of Dar es Salaam with a short stint at the University of Texas at Arlington and Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland. He has over 20 years of experience in mathematical modeling of infectious diseases. Dr. Michel joined Avenir Health in 2014 to work on the USAID Health Policy Project and the PEPFAR Expenditure Analysis. He is the Principal Investigator on two field funded projects to assist - Côte d’Ivoire in the costing of their pediatric and adult ART and - South Africa on the costing of VMMC.

Prior to joining Avenir Health, Michel was a Health Economist at the CDC, Atlanta where he worked on a variety of global health projects. He has extensive work experience in sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean.

Dr. Michel speaks English, French and some Spanish. He has a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Ibadan.

Elric Werst
Senior Software Developer

Elric Werst joined Avenir Health in 2010 and is a Senior Software Developer.

Mr. Werst's responsibilities reside over a wide range of Spectrum modules. These include Family Planning, Logistics, Tuberculosis, Programme Costing, and Programme Management. Outside of the Spectrum modules, he has undertaken the Workplace Policy Builder application.

Mr. Werst holds a B.S. Computer Science from Central Connecticut State University.

Michelle Weinberger
Senior Associate

Michelle Weinberger is a Senior Associate with Avenir Health. She provides technical support to Track20, conducts analysis and develops models related to reproductive health. She has extensive experience developing quantitative models and analysis to inform strategic policy and programmatic decision making.

Ms. Weinberger demographer with a focus on family planning and reproductive health. Before joining Avenir Health, she headed the Impact Analysis team at Marie Stopes International, where she oversaw the development of impact models and metrics. This included developing that Impact 2 model, which estimates the health impact of reproductive health service provision. Prior to that, she worked for Family Health International in Tanzania on reproductive health and HIV prevention programs.

Ms. Weinberger has an MSc in Population and Development from the London School of Economics (LSE).

William Winfrey
President

Dr. William Winfrey is President at Avenir Health. Dr. Winfrey joined the Avenir Health in 2007 after almost thirteen years at the Futures Group. Dr. Winfrey is the technical lead for developing the Lives Saved Tool (LiST) and the OneHealth tool. He is also the corporate manager for subcontracts with the DHS project and the DELIVER project, as well as the director of business development efforts at the Avenir Health.

At the Futures Group, Dr. Winfrey coordinated working groups for poverty in both the Health Policy Initiative Task Order I and the Measure Evaluation Project. Previous to this he was the director of the Finance and Planning element in the POLICY II Project. Dr. Winfrey was also the director of research within the Center for Private Sector and Communications at the Futures Group.

Dr. Winfrey was one of the leading forces in adapting market segmentation techniques to define the role of the public and private sectors for meeting reproductive health needs of a country’s population. He is an expert in estimating the costs and expenditures associated with delivering health services. He was instrumental in developing WHO’s estimate of global expenditures on TB diagnostics. He has developed country level estimates of family planning services, delivery of services for orphans and vulnerable children and a global estimate of the costs associated with unsafe abortion.

Currently Dr. Winfrey focuses his efforts on the development of the LiST tool and the OneHealth tool. The LiST tool helps health policy and programme managers in developing countries assess the mortality impact of scaling up maternal and child health interventions. The OneHealth tool helps developing country health planners create costed medium term plans that include all costs associated with scale up as well as the mortality impact that would ensue as a result.

Dr. Winfrey is also a health researcher. Among his skills are analysis of survey data sets, estimating costs of health services and development of tools to inform planning of family planning and health efforts. Most recently he has calculated age disaggregated maternal mortality rates, costed family planning methods in Pakistan and Rwanda and designed tools to help local NGOs understand the cost structure of their services.

Dr. Winfrey has bachelor’s degrees in Chemical Engineering and Petroleum Engineering. Following two years of Peace Corps experience in Mali, Dr. Winfrey earned a doctorate in economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.