Jane T. Bertrand, PhD, MBA

Director

 

Jane T. Bertrand, PhD, MBA serves as Director for the Center. She serves as Principal Investigator on most of Tulane’s current family planning (FP) projects. She works closely with Dr. Arsene Binanga to determine strategy, ensure effective management, and seek additional investments in FP in the DRC. She also directs specific research designed to understand contraceptive dynamics and programmatic effectiveness.

 

Maria Herdoiza, MPH, MBA

Associate Director

 

 

 

Arsene Binanga, MD, MPH

Research Assistant Professor

 

Arsene Binanga, MD, MPH has been Tulane’s Director for Family Planning Programs in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) since April 2013. In this position, he serves as country representative for several projects: (1) The Promis-PF (a Norway funded project to extend Family Planning coverage in DRC, (2) the ACQUAL Project (funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and David and Lucile Packard Foundation), (3) the Track 20 project to improve routine information systems in the DRC and (4) the AFP project to ensure continuous Government commitment in support of FP. He is also the Advance Family Planning Representative (www.AdvanceFamilyPlanning.org). In this role, Dr. Binanga works closely with DRC officials as well as all FP stakeholders on Advance Family Planning’s agenda. 

Julie Hernandez, PhD

Associate Professor

 

Julie Hernandez, PhD, is an Associate Professor with the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, and is currently working on multiple projects funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Packard Foundation, and the government of Norway to improve access to family planning services in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Dr. Hernandez has expertise in Geographic Information Systems, digital data collection as well as qualitative research methods. Her research interest include access to healthcare services in low and middle-income countries, community-based health interventions, post-disaster and refugee crisis, and sexual and reproductive health issues.

 

Anastasia Gage, PhD

Professor

 

Anastasia Gage is a Professor in the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. Her research focuses on adolescent, reproductive, maternal and child health, and on gender relations in sub-Saharan Africa. She has extensive expertise in monitoring and evaluation of health programs in Ghana, Ethiopia, Haiti, Jamaica, Niger, Nigeria, Uganda, and Zambia. She was Tulane Team Leader for MEASURE Evaluation from 2003 to 2017 and is currently Technical Director of MOMENTUM, a gender-transformative integrated family planning and maternal and newborn health model for first-time mothers age 15-24 and their male partners in Kinshasa, the Democratic Republic of Congo.

 

Janna Wisniewski, PhD

Research Assistant Professor

 

Janna Wisniewski, PhD is a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of International Health and Sustainable Development, with a secondary appointment in Health Policy and Management at the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. She researches health system strengthening, particularly quality improvement, health workforce, governance, and equity, with a focus on fragile and post-conflict settings. She has expertise in using mixed methods in the evaluation of the impact of complex health systems interventions and operations research. Most recently, she has conducted research in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, and Tanzania.

 

Pierre Akilimali, MD, MPH, PhD

Professor, Kinshasa School of Public Health

 

Dr. Pierre Akilimali holds the position of Research Director at both the Patrick Kayembe Research Center and the National Public Health Institute (NPHI) in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). He holds the position of Professor of Medicine and Public Health at both the Kinshasa School of Medicine and the Kinshasa School of Public Health, which are part of the University of Kinshasa. He possesses a vast amount of research expertise in evaluating HIV and family planning programs, having accumulated more than a decade of study experience in the DRC. The primary emphasis of his ongoing research is the study of factors that influence behavior related to HIV and reproductive health. He possesses a wealth of experience in assisting government stakeholders in the development, execution, and oversight of health programs. Its main focus is converting evidence into policy. He specializes in family planning and maternal health. Dr. Akilimali possesses a Doctor of Medicine (MD) degree, a master’s degree in health economics, a Master of Advanced Study (DEA) in Biostatistics and Epidemiology, and a PhD from The Kinshasa School of Public Health.

Emily Sonneveldt, PhD

Adjunct Faculty

 

Dr. Sonneveldt is the Director of M&E and Advocacy at Avenir Health and the Director of the Track20 Project. She currently leads activities that focus on monitoring of health programs, increased data utilization at the national and global levels, and developing and applying innovative tools and models that support data-based decision-making. She has extensive experience supporting governments to develop, implement, and monitor health policies, including facilitation of goal setting and priority identification workshops that have resulted in policy and priority changes. She has performed district and national level applications of computer models focusing on family planning, safe motherhood, post-abortion care, and the impact of rapid population growth on development. She has worked implementing health programs in Africa and the Balkans and served as a technical advisor for policy, advocacy, and research activities in Africa, the Caribbean, Southern Asia, and Eastern Europe. Her primary areas of expertise are family planning and maternal health. Dr. Sonneveldt has an MPH and a Ph.D. in Public Health from Tulane University.

Emma Powers, MPH

Program Manager II

 

Emma Powers, MPH, is the Program Manager II for the Center for Reproductive Health Policy and Programs. She supports the center with the management, coordination, and monitoring of its programs in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). She also oversees day-to-day administrative and financial operations of Tulane and TILLC-DRC to implement programmatic activities. Emma is a returned Peace Corps Volunteer, she served in Eswatini to facilitate HIV/AIDS education and programming. She is currently pursing a Master of Public Administration in Nonprofit and Strategic Philanthropy Management at the Tulane University School of Professional Advancement.

 

Wade Wootan, JD

Global Affairs and Regulatory Compliance Administrator

 

Mr. Wootan is a Louisiana-licensed attorney with nearly 30 years of experience advising senior leadership and personnel in the higher education and health care sectors. He has had progressive responsibilities, facilitating the creation of institutional frameworks to oversee and support high-quality research, capacity building, and learning worldwide. Wade oversees Tulane International, L.L.C., a wholly-owned multinational controlled by the University. He chairs Tulane’s two core international committees that oversee research and travel abroad. Previously, he served as Tulane’s Associate General Counsel for Research and Life Sciences where he counseled the University’s 18,500 plus faculty, staff, and students on a broad range of business and legal matters. 

Mr. Wootan oversaw the development and implementation of a full range of international policies and training used by Tulane to support international banking, cash management, payroll, and compliance. At Tulane, he works with faculty from across the University to establish educational programs and research projects around the world. He is primarily responsible for establishing and operationalizing legal structures and plans for University-related activity abroad, especially in remote and developing countries.

Gael Compta, MSc, MA

Doctoral Student

 

Gael Compta is a doctoral student in the Department of International Health and Sustainable Development at the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine (SPHTM). He earned a Master of Sciences (MSc) in Economics from the University of Nottingham (United Kingdom) and a Master of Arts (MA) in Economics from the Université de Bordeaux (France). Before starting his doctoral studies, Gael was based in Manila, Philippines working as a consultant for the World Health Organization Western Pacific Regional Office as part of the Division of Health Systems.

He currently works as a research assistant for Dr. Hernandez and Dr. Bertrand on projects related to improving access to quality family planning services in the Democratic Republic of Congo. His research interests include international family planning, youth and adolescent health sexual and reproductive health, and the use of econometrics to analyze health policies and programs.

Sydney Sauter, MPH

Doctoral Student

 

Sydney Sauter is a doctoral student in the Department of International Health and Sustainable Development at the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine (SPHTM). She earned her MPH from Tulane SPHTM in the Department of Epidemiology in 2022. With a strong analytic and methods background, Sydney works as a research assistant to Drs. Bertrand and Hernandez on various projects related to international family planning (especially in the DRC) as well as domestic projects related to abortion access in the American South.

Sydney’s research interests include monitoring and evaluation of family planning programs, abortion stigma reduction, and youth and adolescent health in low-and middle-income countries. She is currently a consultant for Track20 at Avenir Health and provides technical support to the Ipas DRC team.

Madeline Woo, PhD, MA, MSPH

Recent PhD Student

 

Madeline Woo completed her doctoral studies in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in 2024. She received her MSPH from the Department of International Health in the Health Systems concentration from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Her research interests include reproductive, maternal, and neonatal health in low- and middle- income countries. She currently works as a research assistant for Dr. Bertrand in the Center for Reproductive Health Policy and Programs on reproductive health projects in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

 

Kate LaNasa, PhD, MPH

Recent PhD Student

 

Kate LaNasa completed her doctoral studies in the Health Policy and Management department in 2024. She completed her MPH in 2019 at Tulane University in the International Health and Development program with a certificate in Methods of Monitoring and Evaluation. As both a masters and doctoral student, she has worked with Drs. Bertrand and Hernandez on multiple research projects related to improving access to quality family planning services in the DRC.

Kate spent the summer of 2018 as a monitoring and evaluation intern in the Tulane International office in Kinshasa, DRC and completed her practicum in Humjibre, Ghana where she led sexual/reproductive health workshops for adolescent girls. She has also worked as the program manager for the Tulane Violence Prevention Institute and as an intern on the Track20 project at Avenir Health. Her research interests include monitoring of family planning programs, contraceptive supply environments, and the intersection between sexual/reproductive health and gender-based violence.