After graduating from Bates in 2008, I worked as a program coordinator for the international public health organization Jhpiego, in Baltimore, MD. While there, I supported the implementation of community based maternal health services in Afghanistan, and HIV education and prevention programs in Botswana. This work taught me that I really wanted to expand upon the research skills I gained at Bates, and in 2011 I moved to Boston, MA, to pursue a masters in science from the Harvard School of Public Health, focusing on social epidemiology, sexual and reproductive health, and human rights. After graduating I held various global health research and policy positions in Boston while also training and practicing as a birth doula, and organizing a series of salon-style meetings for a  group of Boston-area reproductive health and rights academics, activists, program implementers and policy experts. Shortly before the 2016 election I relocated to New York City where I now work for Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health as a Senior Program Officer in the Dept. of Population and Family Health. I’m currently overseeing a mixed-methods evaluation of the impact of the Global Gag Rule on the provision and access of sexual and reproductive health services in Kenya and Nepal. The Global Gag Rule is an executive order which currently prohibits the allocation of U.S. global health assistance to foreign nongovernmental organizations unless they certify that they will not use funding from any source to provide counseling or referral for abortion, lobby for abortion law liberalization, or provide abortions in cases other than those involving a threat to the life or health of the woman, rape, or incest. I rely upon my training in anthropology every day–I even share my office with a medical anthropologist!–as an unrelenting supporter of qualitative research methods in international development work. I’m living in Brooklyn Heights and commute wayyy uptown to 168th street every day, so I am always looking for podcast recommendations for my commute!

Emily Maistrellis

Class of 2008