Stephanie Psaki is a social demographer with expertise in the intersections of gender, education, and physical and mental health. Her research focuses on what works to improve the lives of girls and women globally. She leads and contributes to numerous studies on education and health at the Population Council. She also works to translate evidence for broader audiences of policy-makers and practitioners. She has provided research guidance to high-level U.S. government officials, including the Office of former First Lady Michelle Obama and the U.S. State Department Office of Global Women’s Issues.
Before joining the Council, Dr. Psaki worked as a project director in the Gender Department at FHI 360, designing and leading girls’ education programs. Earlier she was a Co-Investigator on the eight-country MAL-ED study, focused on child health and development, at the U.S National Institutes of Health. She holds a PhD in women’s health and demography from Johns Hopkins University, and an MS in population and international health from Harvard University. She has worked in diverse low-income settings, including Burundi, DRC, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Niger, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda.