Management Sciences for Health Welcomes New Board Directors Magda Robalo and Ahmed Mushtaque Raza Chowdhury

Arlington, VA—March 25, 2024—Management Sciences for Health (MSH) is pleased to welcome two new members to its Board of Directors: Magda Robalo and Ahmed Mushtaque Raza Chowdhury.

Dr. Magda Robalo is a public health physician and infectious disease expert whose career spans more than 30 years. She is the president and co-founder of The Institute for Global Health and Development of Guinea-Bissau, which works with a diverse range of partners to achieve sustainable development outcomes. As a former Minister of Health, high commissioner for the COVID-19 response in Guinea-Bissau, WHO representative, director of communicable diseases at WHO/AFRO, and global managing director of Women in Global Health, Dr. Robalo has spearheaded numerous successful domestic and international initiatives working across governmental, multilateral, and civil society organizations. She has a track record of promoting gender equality and equitable access to quality health care, social justice, ethics, and accountability.

Dr. Robalo has solid knowledge and robust experience with a broad range of public health issues, gender equality, ethics, and governance and serves on several boards and councils, connecting and interacting with a vast network of experts and policymakers in global health.

Dr. Robalo holds an MD from Universidade do Porto, Portugal, with a postgraduate certificate in public health and tropical medicine (Universidade Nova, Portugal) and a master of sciences in epidemiology (Université Laval, Canada).

Dr. Ahmed Mushtaque Raza Chowdhury is a professor of population and family health at Columbia University and, until recently, was a visiting scholar at the University of Notre Dame. He spent nearly four decades at BRAC, one of the largest development organizations in the world, where he was its vice chair; executive director; founding director of the Research and Evaluation Division; and founding dean of the James P. Grant School of Public Health, where he still serves as an advisor.

Dr. Chowdhury is a founder of two civil society watchdogs: Bangladesh Education Watch and Bangladesh Health Watch. He serves on the boards and committees of 10 organizations. An award-winning author, Dr. Chowdhury has published six books and almost 200 articles in national and international journals. One of his books received the 2018 University Press Ltd Award in the category of “Outstanding Impact.”

Dr. Chowdhury holds a PhD from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, an MSc from the London School of Economics, and a BA in statistics from Dhaka University.

“I am pleased to welcome Magda and Mushtaque to the MSH board and know that their mission focus, extensive development experience, and entrepreneurial mindset will help drive MSH’s strategy forward as we work to build on local expertise and implement data-driven strategies to strengthen health systems for millions of people around the world,” said MSH President and CEO Marian W. Wentworth.