Meet Our Team

Franccesca Cesti-Browne, MPA

Director of Finance and Operations

Franccesca Cesti-Browne has over 10 years of experience in finance, operations and contract management. She also has over 8 years of experience in program management, grant writing and business development. Franccesca holds a master’s in Public Administration from Florida International University. As the Director of Finance and Operations, she leads the team that supports the Institute’s operating functions: HR, Contracts, IT, Field Operations, Administration and Finance. Franccesca manages the Institute’s annual budget, provides leadership and strategic management to all administrative, financial, and operational functions.

Sandra Chipanta, MPH

Program Officer

Sandra Chipanta has over six years of experience in the management and implementation of international development interventions in Africa (Benin, Niger, and Togo) and in Asia (Bangladesh and Nepal). She has worked in the areas of maternal, newborn, and child health, sexual and reproductive health, and HIV/AIDS. At IRH, Sandra manages the Fertility Awareness for Community Transformation (FACT) Project in Nepal and reviews French translations. Prior to joining IRH, she supported capacity building activities for social franchises in Francophone West Africa and Madagascar. Sandra obtained her BA from Mount Holyoke College and MPH from George Washington University. Originally from Togo, she is fluent in both French and Ewe.

Cait Davin, MA

Program Associate

Cait supports FACT, Passages, Learning Collaborative, and Masculinities, Faith and Peace projects. Prior to joining IRH, she interned at the International Foundation for Electoral Systems and with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, where she supported international development projects on women’s empowerment and gender equality. Cait has a BSPH in Health Promotion and Education from Kent State University and a MA in International Administration from the University of Denver.

Jamie Greenberg, MPH

Program Officer

Jamie Greenberg has seven years’ experience in program management, research, and technical writing for both international and domestic health projects. Prior to joining IRH, she worked on international health systems strengthening projects and conducted qualitative research on reproductive health service implementation. She has an MPH from the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, and a BA in Biology and Community Health from Tufts University.

Susan Igras, MPH

Senior Technical Advisor

Susan Igras leads the Practice and Scale-up Work Stream of Passages.  With over 25 years of global health experience in Africa, the Caribbean, South Asia and the U.S., she brings a unique mix of evaluation and implementation science, technical sexual and reproductive health and gender, including adolescents, and management to IRH’s work, with a keen ability to translate research and high-level concepts into practice.    Committed to gender and social equity, and participatory processes leading to use of results, Susan is particularly interested in community-based programs, social change, and their relation to health systems and systems-oriented scale-up. 

Anjalee Kohli, MPH, PhD

Senior Research Officer

Dr. Anjalee Kohli has over a decade of international health and development experience focusing on research and practice for prevention of gender based violence, violence against children, HIV/AIDS and promoting improved mental health and resilience. Anjalee works as a Senior Research Officer, providing strategic leadership, research expertise and technical vision under the Passages Project. Anjalee received her PhD from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and holds an MPH. Anjalee previously worked with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing.

Courtney J. McLarnon-Silk, MSc

Program Officer

Courtney brings has over six years of experience in international development, coordinating and managing initiatives related to gender equality and mainstreaming, women’s rights, and women’s empowerment. At the Institute, Courtney works on the Passages project, focusing her time on project management, management of the Transforming Masculinities/Masculinite, Famille et Foi intervention, and on establishing regional Communities of to strengthen regional work on normative change for AYSRH. Courtney also manages the Institute’s​ ​ongoing​ ​work on bringing CycleTel to market. She received an MSc from the University of Edinburgh, and a BA from McGill University. Originally from Montreal, Canada, she speaks fluent French.

Nasratullah Noori, MBA

Finance Officer

Nasratullah Noori has over 10 years of professional experience in Finance and Accounting with profit and nonprofit organizations ⁠– such as United nations, G&D Currency Technology, an international bank and multinational companies ⁠⁠– and extensive knowledge in managing accounts payable & receivable, cash management, budgeting, financial reporting and bank reconciliation.

Nasratullah Noori holds a bachelor degree and a two-year diploma in business administration. He is currently pursuing his Master’s Degree in Accounting. At IRH, he works as a finance officer supporting financial functions for the IRH team. Originally from Afghanistan, he fluent in Hindi, Dari, Pashto, and English.

Bryan Shaw, PhD, MPH

Senior Research Manager

Dr. Bryan Shaw has over a decade of international health and development experience, focusing on rigorous public health research and behavior change interventions. At IRH, Bryan works as a senior research officer, largely providing strategic leadership and quality control for research studies under the Passages Project. He received his PhD from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in International Health and also holds a MPH and MS in Applied Medical Anthropology. Bryan worked previously with Population Services International (PSI), UNICEF, and USAID.

Natacha Stevanovic-Fenn, PhD

Senior Research Officer

Natacha Stevanovic-Fenn has over a decade of gender and international development experience, focusing on rigorous qualitative research design and analysis conducted in the Balkans, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), South Asia, and sub Saharan Africa. Her areas of technical expertise include: sexual and reproductive health; child marriage; gender-based violence; male engagement and masculinities; social norms; youth migration; migration-development nexus; and gender analysis. At IRH, Natacha works as a senior research officer, providing technical leadership and oversight on the conceptualization and operationalization of research projects. She received her PhD in Sociology from Columbia University, MA in Social Anthropology from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris, and BA in Cultural Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley. Prior to joining IRH, Natacha worked with the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) and UNICEF. She is a French native and she is fluent in English, Spanish and Serbian.