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Speaker Biographies


Sr. Carmel Abwot

  • Sr. Carmel is a midwife and the Principal Tutor at St. Mary's Midwifery School, Kalongo, Uganda.

Dr. Sally Graham

  • Dr. Sally Graham is a Midwife and Anthropologist with extensive work experience, research and development of Maternal health care programs in Karamoja Uganda. My main focus being Traditional Birth Attendants.

Dr. Kathleen Vongsathorn

  • Kathleen Vongsathorn is a Wellcome Trust Research Fellow in Medical Humanities at the University of Warwick, undertaking research on the relationship between health education and health seeking behaviour in Ugandan history.

Magdalena Ohaja

  • Magdalena is a Nigerian and a midwife. She is currently an Assistant Professor in Midwifery at School of Nursing and Midwifery Trinity College Dublin. Her PhD (completed in 2015) explored the concept of safe motherhood and its complexities as experienced and understood by women, midwives, and informally trained birth attendants in southeast Nigeria. She has a keen interest in the following areas: teaching at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. Her research interest includes: safety/risk and normality in childbirth, women’s/maternal health, women-led maternity care, culturally competent care, international midwifery/policies, socio-economic, cultural and political determinants of maternal health.

Katie Moore

  • Katie Moore holds an MSc with Distinction in Sexual and Reproductive Health from Queen Margaret University Edinburgh and is a certified birth and post-natal doula, and breastfeeding counsellor. Katie’s work focuses on gender issues, family planning and reproductive rights and her recent applied research in Scotland has focused on health care practitioners and diaspora from FGM practicing communities. Katie is a Research Associate with Anthrologica, a leading research-based organisation specialising in applied anthropology in global health. Anthrologica conducts formative and operational research across health sectors, focusing on the interface between the provision and uptake of health services and products, often in resource scarce and fragile states, and in emergency contexts. Currently, Katie is leading Anthrologica’s work as part of a multi-partner consortium examining the acceptability and usability of nutritional supplements during pregnancy in Nepal and Burkina Faso.

Prof. Wendy Graham

  • Wendy Graham is Professor of Obstetric Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, & Emeritus Professor at the University of Aberdeen. She trained at Sheffield and then Oxford University, and has specialist interests in the prevention of maternal mortality, and in healthcare-associated infections in mothers and newborns. Wendy has participated in collaborative research in many countries over the last thirty years, with partnership projects currently in Ethiopia, Gambia, Myanmar, and Tanzania. She was a senior fellow at the UK Department for International Development for three years, & is currently the Chief Scientific Adviser to a charitable trust focused on preventing infections during childbirth (www.soapboxcollaborative.org). She serves on committees and panels for several international organisations, NGOs & foundations, including WHO; the Research Council of Norway; the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health; and the Wellcome Trust.