Join us in giving a warm welcome to Gilda Sedgh! She joins the Population Institute as our senior director of global initiatives. She’ll be responsible for leading analytical initiatives and building organizational partnerships that highlight the links between population dynamics, gender equity, sexual and reproductive health and rights, and sustainable development. Using evidence to advance reproductive rights has been the driving force of her career, first as a research scientist and now as a strategic leader focused on translating evidence into policy impact.

As a population scientist and demographer, Gilda has more than 25 years of experience studying global and regional trends in reproductive health and translating evidence into policy recommendations for governments, UN agencies, bilateral donors, and other partners. She served as senior—and then principal—research scientist at the Guttmacher Institute, where she led global research on trends in unintended pregnancy, abortion, and barriers to contraceptive use that became reference points for the field; she also developed new research methods for the study of hard-to-measure behaviors. As an independent consultant, Gilda advised UNFPA, the World Health Organization, Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, and Population Services International on priority setting, evidence-to-policy translation, and measurement frameworks for global health portfolios. She also co-chaired a global collaborative on SRHR self-care evidence that grew exponentially in size and reach during her leadership. Gilda holds a doctorate in epidemiology and a master’s in population and international health from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and a bachelor’s in international relations from the University of Pennsylvania.