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A few years ago, the Department of Population, Family, and Reproductive Health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health asked me to give an "Amazing Alumni" lecture, as part of their 100th anniversary celebrations. I was beyond honored to be one of six alumni chosen to give a talk! I was asked to reflect on my career trajectory. Since most talks I do focus on research findings - it was a challenge (an intimidating one!) to put together a talk that was more personal. It was even more intimidating to deliver it to a room full of the people who taught me much of what I know about global public health!

I've worked on some controversial issues in sexual and reproductive health, so decided to make 'controversy' the theme. In retrospect, I'm annoyed I didn't sneak this Prince song in to the talk, but...live and learn.

It was a fun opportunity to reflect on some lessons learned so far in my career. The audio recording of my talk is posted here (a few minutes seem to be skipped near the end), and slides can be downloaded below.
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I've admired the FPVoices project by K4Health and FP2020 for so long, and was very honored when they asked to interview me at the International Conference on Family Planning in Rwanda in November 2018.

In an audio interview posted on Soundcloud, we chat about what got me interested in reproductive health, who inspires me, working on controversial issues, doing systematic reviews, and subjects like hormonal contraception and HIV, fertility awareness based methods, multipurpose prevention technologies, reproductive justice, infertility, and more.

To see other #FPVoices, check out their wonderful page: http://fpvoices.tumblr.com/. I feel very grateful to be part of this community!
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In January 2016, I attended the fourth International Conference on Family Planning. I've been very fortunate to be able to attend all four of these incredible gatherings: in Uganda in 2009, in Senegal in 2011, in Ethiopia in 2013, and in Indonesia in 2016.

At these conferences, I'm always reminded what it feels like to be surrounded by everyday heroes working in reproductive health, and I inevitably come home more inspired and reinvigorated. This year was particularly energized because of the large youth delegation that brought incredible spirit and talents to the conference!
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Hanging out with incredible youth delegates! Left to right: Francis Oko Armah (Ghanaian), Chelsea Polis (American), Patrick Segawa (Ugandan), and Maureen Odour (Kenyan)

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As part of my interest in expanding the evidence base on various contraceptive options, I am currently collaborating on a systematic review of the effectiveness of various fertility awareness-based methods (FABMs) of contraception (note: this is not the same as the rhythm method, more on that another day). Working in this area has led to a number of fascinating connections and dialogues. Most recently, a Fertility Awareness Educator named Sarah Bly asked if I'd be willing to give a lecture on scientific literacy to her new class of students. This seemed like a nice science communication opportunity, a fun chance to present on much broader topics than I usually do, and a good way connect with new (to me) folks working directly with women on issues in contraception.
A few weeks before my presentation, Sarah shared with me that through years of using alternative medical approaches in her personal and family life, her ways of understanding health and healing are rooted in primarily in personal experience, and secondarily in science. I appreciated her sharing this with me for a few reasons. First, considering the different approaches by which people obtain and interpret medical information helped me be more explicit in my presentation about the specific elements that make me place great trust in science (while still trying to acknowledge/articulate areas for improvements). Second, I applaud people who invite constructive interaction and exchange with folks who have potentially divergent perspectives. So, I'm grateful to Sarah for the invitation, and to the students for the great discussions afterward - it was lots of fun!

The 50-minute talk was presented online, and the recording is linked below. A few brilliant folks on Twitter (shout out to Dr. Liz Allen & others!) suggested it might also be useful to provide links to shorter thematic clips - that's below, as well. As a talk geared primarily towards an audience with limited familiarity on certain scientific concepts - I'd welcome feedback from scientists and non-scientists alike on what could be improved for next time!

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A reproductive health epidemiologist who hopes to transmute her rage at social injustice and scientific denialism into something useful.