Sarah Konopka, MSH’s Technical Director of Infectious Diseases and Cluster Lead for HIV and AIDS, has more than 15 years of experience in program design and implementation, research, and policy analysis in HIV and integrated health programs in more than 20 countries. She leads the development and design of MSH’s work to strengthen infectious diseases programming, with a focus on HIV, malaria, TB, and other emerging health threats. She also serves as the Health System Strengthening lead for the Reaching Impact, Saturation and Epidemic Control (RISE) project, which is funded by PEPFAR through USAID and led by Jhpiego. She previously served as Technical Director of the MSH-led, USAID-funded African Strategies for Health (ASH) project.

Throughout her career, Konopka has led research and built high-level consensus with USAID Missions, host governments, civil society, the private sector, and multilateral organizations to produce tangible outputs, such as the development and adoption of regional minimum standards for HIV services in southern Africa.

Prior to joining MSH, she worked at the International HIV/AIDS Alliance, providing technical support to Asia- and Eastern Europe-based civil society organizations to manage and implement HIV-related programming for key populations. She served as an HIV and AIDS and Community Health Peace Corps volunteer in Tanzania, where she designed and managed community-based HIV prevention projects.

Konopka holds a master’s degree in international development from the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, UK. Her publications include several peer-reviewed articles on HIV/AIDS as well as research papers and policy briefs on strategic integration and enablers of and barriers to HIV service uptake and usage.