Meet the Team

Chief Executive Director

Maureen Oduor is a renowned ASRH Health activist and a development specialist by profession with over 10 years of experience working directly in grassroots communities around East Africa and beyond, advancing adolescent girls’ and women’s access to comprehensive sexual and reproductive health rights, health policies advocacy and budgeting processes. Maureen has vast project management skills, including substantial skills in adolescents’ sexual health programming ranging from designing, implementing and managing small and large-scale projects in East Africa. Her past projects have been funded by the Amplify Change Fund, Family Planning 2020, USAID, Women Deliver, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. She is well equipped with skills around sexual rights advocacy and community mobilization, and Maureen successfully served at the youth envoy pushing for inclusion for ASRH within the current SDG Agenda. She has also helped develop policy advocacy strategy for the successful marriage age definition in Tanzania parliament. Maureen has voiced sexual rights issues in high level spaces such as speaking roles at the United Nations General Assembly meetings in New York and at the African Union meetings in Addis Ababa.

Chair of the Board

Dr. Onyango has over 25 years experience in health care delivery and management. At the Department of International Health she teaches courses in managing disasters and complex humanitarian emergencies, sexual and reproductive health in disaster settings. Her experience includes Kenya Ministry of Health for ten years as a nursing officer in management positions at two hospitals and as a lecturer at the Nairobi’s Medical Training College, School of Nursing. Monica is also a registered nurse by Massachusetts Board of Nursing. From 1992 to 1998, Dr. Onyango worked as a health team leader with international non-governmental organizations in relief and development in South Sudan, Angola and a refugee camp in Kenya. In South Sudan and Angola, she facilitated the design and implementation of community based health services where there had been no services for several years. At Kakuma refugee camp in North Western Kenya, she helped design the maternal and child health programs for over 20,000 refugees. Dr, Onyango has also participated in providing training for South Sudanese health workers on emergency obstetrics and neonatal care. In 2011, she co-founded the global nursing caucus (GNC) at BUSPH with a mission to advance the role of nursing in global health practice, education and policy through advocacy, collaboration, engagement and research. Her current research interests focus on reproductive health, maternal and child health, HIV/AIDS, health care among populations affected by disasters and the role of nurses and midwives in improving health status of populations globally. She holds a PhD in Nursing from Boston College, a Master of Science (nursing) degree from Boston College, a Master in Public Health degree from Boston University School of Public Health, Diploma in Advanced Nursing from Nairobi University, Diploma in general nursing and midwifery from Kenya Medical Training College, Nairobi.

Board Member

Addah Awiti is an Advocate of the High Court of Kenya and currently works as an Associate at Maumo & Company Advocates. Her main areas of practice are civil litigation, land law, family law (child custody and maintenance, divorce cases, succession cause), constitutional law and commercial law. Addah handles matters in all the 3 court categories and also acts as counsel and arbitrator in various commercial arbitrations. She is a member of the Law Society of Kenya and FIDA Kenya. Addah attended the Kenya School of Law for a Post Graduate Diploma in law (Bar Qualifying Examinations) and before that, Moi University where she received her Bachelor of Laws (LLB). She speaks English, Swahili, and Dhuluo and is experienced in drafting legal opinions, court litigation on various aspects of the law, sensitization on women rights, and conducting legal aid and research.

Board Member & Treasurer

Mr. Jacob Oganga is a teacher by profession with over 15 years of experience teaching and acting as local parent to more than 1000 adolescent girls and boys who he has natured through secondary school education. For the last 10 years he has been teaching in a rural secondary school called Jera, where most students are marginalized and from very poor backgrounds. While working at a rural school, Mr. Oganga witnessed inequalities and sad experiences such as a high prevalence of teenage pregnancy cases, unsafe abortions, teen parents attending school, and child marriage. He was dealing with such situations with very minimal structure or organizations to support adolescents’ health. Currently in school, he supports guidance and counseling departments as well as discipline departments. In addition, Mr. Oganga supports adolescent girls’ self-esteem building through sports and development by coaching a girls’ football team. In Jera and beyond his receptiveness and high understanding of adolescent issues has placed him at the receiving point where adolescents seek advice and confide in him when they have personal issues.

Board Member

Nick Oketch hails from rural Siaya County in western Kenya and has six years’ experience in the nonprofit and volunteer sectors. He is inspired to fight for and advance gender equality, youth development, and sexual health rights. Nick’s work entails youth rights advocacy and capacity building for young women and adolescents in his community. He is currently an UNLEASH Lab 2017 SDG Talent, Women Deliver Young Global Leader, Johnson and Johnson Global Fellow, and YALI Regional Leadership Center East Africa alumnus. Nick is also the director and founder of the Paradigm Youth Network Organization in Kenya, an organization aiming to break the culture of silence on sex and sexuality among young people ages 13-24. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical and Electronics Engineering, and a certificate in Global Health from John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the United States. He is passionate about engaging youth and improving the health of young people and adolescents in his community.

Board Member & Secretary

Lauren Olson is a public health professional working at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. She received her Master of Public Health degree with a focus on Program Management and Global Health at the Boston University School of Public Health in 2021. Previously she received her BA in Global Health with a minor in Sociocultural Anthropology from the University of California San Diego, where she participated in both field work and coursework in Spain, Mexico, and Chile. Through her courses and experiences in global health, Lauren found a passion for reducing health disparities in underserved populations around the world. Lauren’s major global health interests include maternal health, mental health, and sexual & reproductive health, and she plans to work on improving access to quality healthcare for all throughout her public health career.

Board Member & Vice Secretary

Sara Purvis is a Research Coordinator at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Sara received her Master of Public Health degree with a focus on Health Policy & Law and Maternal & Child Health at the Boston University School of Public Health. She received her Bachelor of Science in Public Health with minors in Biology and Pre-Professional Health from the College at Brockport. Shortly after, Sara earned her Certified Health Education Specialist (CHES®) credentials. Throughout her courses and internships, she has developed skills in health education, program planning, and implementing social media campaigns. Sara intends to focus on reproductive justice and maternal health during her public health career. Her goal is to expand access to sexual and reproductive health services on a global scale.

Board Member

Laura Stehler completed her undergraduate studies at Boston College in 2020, earning a Bachelor of Science in Biology with a minor in Medical Humanities. Laura spent her four years at BC involved heavily in public health advocacy and access, working as a research intern on a sexual health study conducted at Boston Children’s Hospital and implementing grant-funded independent studies on  expansion of access to a public health clinic in Gbémazo, Côte d’Ivoire as well as a sex education and menstruation course that she taught at various secondary schools in Siaya, Kenya. Laura currently works as a Senior Clinical Outreach Associate at OpenBiome, the largest nonprofit stool bank in the United States, assisting in access to life-saving fecal microbiota transplants (FMT) and the expansion of research into the human microbiome. Laura hopes to continue working in public health, particularly women’s and sexual reproductive health, until race, gender, and sexual orientation are no longer barriers to healthcare and all adolescents are able to gain access to the information and help they need.