Dr Alyssa Sharkey is a Lecturer in the School of Policy and International Affairs at Princeton University where she is affiliated with both the Center for Health and Wellbeing, and the Office for Population Research. She also works as a consultant in global health – most recently for UNICEF, the World Health Organization and the Population Reference Bureau. Between 2010 and 2021, she was a Senior Health Specialist with UNICEF working in both their Headquarters and South Asia Regional Offices. Her focus areas include maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health, equity and immunisation, gender-related barriers to health services, health system strengthening and implementation research to improve health programs in collaboration with health policymakers. Over the past 25 years, Alyssa has worked as a health policy analyst, program officer, and policy researcher within a variety of academic, research and non-governmental settings both internationally and in the United States.

Dr Sharkey has a Master of Health Science and a PhD from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and a Master of Science in Medicine from the University of Cape Town in South Africa.