Expert

Sophie Namy is a gender and development specialist at the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW). In this role, Namy helps international development organizations evaluate programs through a gender lens and conducts empirical research related to violence against women, engaging men and boys and women’s property rights.

Namy brings more than six years of experience in development research, with a particular focus on evaluating community-based interventions, training and capacity building. Prior to joining ICRW, Namy served as an American India Foundation Clinton Fellow with the Kumaon Agriculture & Greenery Advancement Society. Her work focused on designing and conducting research related to HIV, sex work and women’s economic empowerment in rural India. Namy also consulted for USAID and Futures Group International on a qualitative evaluation of a maternal health intervention designed to improve women's knowledge and their access to services at the village level.

Anurag Mishra is a senior technical specialist at the International Center for Research on Women's (ICRW) Asia Regional Office. In this capacity, he prepares data collection instrument, project reports and monitoring tools and helps evaluate data.

Mishra has more than 12 years of experience monitoring and evaluating programs in India and providing technical assistance to partner institutions that want to expand their efforts. Prior to joining ICRW, he worked for eight years as a program officer at Population Council in New Delhi, where he provided technical assistance and evaluation expertise for a variety of government programs. He also provided monitoring and evaluation support as a consultant for the Constella Group. As a doctoral candidate, Mishra coordinated survey work between the International Institute for Population Sciences and the government.

Jennifer McCleary-Sills is a senior social and behavioral scientist at the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW). In this role, McCleary-Sills uses theory to design and evaluate health programs that serve women, adolescents, and populations in post-conflict regions.

McCleary-Sills brings more than a decade of experience in public health practice and international development, with particular expertise in designing and implementing programs related to sexual and reproductive health, gender-based violence, and HIV/AIDS. Prior to joining ICRW in 2009, McCleary-Sills worked at the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs providing research and evaluation support to field offices for national communication programs. McCleary-Sills also worked with the grants and acquisition department at World Vision and served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Jordan.

McCleary-Sills has worked in more than a dozen countries throughout Latin America, the Middle East and Africa.

Aslihan Kes is an economic and gender specialist at the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW). In this role, Kes provides technical assistance, management and budgetary support to research partners.

Kes is an economist with six years of experience who conducts research and designs programs related to a variety of topics. Her work at ICRW has included analyzing the costs of maternal mortality on households as well as developing approaches to integrate gender considerations into agricultural projects. Kes also has explored the status of women’s property and inheritance rights globally as well as analyzed how those rights are linked to HIV, AIDS and domestic violence in Uganda and South Africa.

Kes is co-author of “Taking Action: Achieving Gender Equality and Empowering Women,” “Gender and Time Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa” and “Seven Priorities, Seven Years to Go: Progress on Achieving Gender Equality.”

Anjala Kanesathasan is a senior public health specialist at the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW). In this role, Kanesathasan provides technical and management direction for a range of projects related to health, gender, adolescents and women’s empowerment.  

Kanesathasan brings more than 15 years of experience developing, managing and evaluating health and development projects. She has led multiple efforts at ICRW, including assessing options for increasing women’s agricultural engagement in West Africa and evaluating a program to decrease violence among young men in the Balkans. Prior to joining ICRW in 2007, Kanesathasan directed the behavior change communications component of a large reproductive and child health program in Kenya with PATH. Kanesathasan also has directed communications programs for a social marketing project to promote family planning and prevention of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections in Uganda.  

In addition to her 10 years based in East Africa, Kanesathasan’s field experience includes southern Africa, South and Central Asia, Eastern Europe and the Caribbean.

Krista Jacobs is an economist at the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW). In this role, Jacobs develops capacity building and monitoring and evaluation tools that bring a gender lens to issues related to land, property, agriculture and food security.

Jacobs has more than six years of experience researching the interaction of gender, poverty, health and agricultural development. Jacobs measures the social and economic circumstances of girls and women through surveys and impact analyses. Before joining ICRW in 2008, she was as a fellow at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Global AIDS Program. She also served as a research collaborator at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and as a research manager at a food and nutrition project in Ghana, lead by IFPRI and the United Nations Children’s Fund.

Anne Marie Golla is senior economist and evaluation specialist at the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW). In this role, Golla leads impact evaluations of projects aimed at economically empowering women and provides technical assistance on economic and evaluation issues.  

Golla has more than 15 years of experience in monitoring and evaluation and in research of women and work, food security, and poverty. Prior to joining ICRW in 2007, Golla conducted research on food security issues in the United States for the Economic Research Service of the United States Department of Agriculture. Earlier, she oversaw the design and monitoring of economic and rural development projects for CARE International.

Golla has worked on projects in Latin America, Southeast Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe, and has extensive experience in Russia, Central Asia and the Transcaucasus region. Golla has held teaching positions at Georgetown University and the University of Maryland at College Park.

Jeffrey Edmeades is a social demographer at the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW). In this role, Edmeades manages a variety of projects in which he provides technical assistance to partners, designs and conducts program evaluations and executes data analysis. His research primarily focuses on the interaction between the development process and demographic behavior, including fertility, contraceptive use and migration as well as household decision-making processes and the role gender norms play in shaping demographic outcomes.

Edmeades, who joined ICRW in 2006, brings years of experience in studying the effects of rural poverty, gender inequality and reproductive health patterns in the developing world. He also has published a number of peer-reviewed papers that address research methodology and the determinants of reproductive behavior and intimate partner violence, among other topics. His work has appeared in academic publications such as Demography, Social Science and Medicine, Studies in Family Planning and the Journal of Mixed Method Research.

Edmeades has extensive international experience in a number of countries including Canada, Mexico, Ghana, Thailand, England, Ethiopia and New Zealand.

Madhumita Das is a senior technical specialist at the International Center for Research on Women’s (ICRW) Asia Regional Office. In this capacity, she manages and provides technical support for several projects. Her responsibilities include conceptual and instrument design, program design, training and capacity building, data management and analysis, monitoring and evaluation, dissemination of project results and liaising with donors.

Das has more than 10 years of academic research experience. Prior to joining ICRW, Das was as a senior program specialist at Constella Futures, where she worked on program management, operations research and communications for a project to provide reproductive and child health services in India. Das also worked at the Population Council and as a consultant for Johns Hopkins University.