Kelly Blanchard
President

Kelly Blanchard holds a Master of Science in Population and International Health and a Bachelor of Arts degree in social studies from Harvard University. Prior to joining Ibis Reproductive Health, she was a Fulbright Scholar in Ghana and worked as a Program Associate at the Population Council in New York and South Africa, where she managed a growing regional program on reproductive health. Kelly joined Ibis in 2003 as an Associate and opened our Johannesburg office. Her research has focused on emergency contraception, medication and surgical abortion, microbicides, and barrier methods for HIV prevention; she has authored or co-authored more than 40 articles on reproductive health in developing and developed countries. In 2006 Kelly received the Outstanding Young Professional Award from the Population, Family Planning and Reproductive Health Section of the American Public Health Association. She also received the Darroch Award recognizing excellence in research to advance sexual and reproductive health from the Guttmacher Institute in 2009. Our Board of Directors appointed Kelly President of Ibis in November 2004.

 

 

 

Amanda Dennis
Senior Project Manager

Amanda Dennis joined Ibis in 2007. She received her Bachelor of Arts from Hampshire College and her Master’s of Bioethics from the University of Pennsylvania. Ms. Dennis is presently pursuing her Doctorate in Public Health at Boston University, focusing on social and behavioral aspects of health care. Prior to joining Ibis, she worked as a counselor at an ambulatory surgery center specializing in second-trimester abortion care and as a counselor at a domestic violence shelter. Currently, she manages Ibis’s research on the Hyde Amendment and US federal abortion funding bans, as well as several projects focused on contraceptive access in the US. Other research interests include disability rights and health care disparities.

Angel Foster
Affiliated Scholar

Angel M. Foster joined Ibis Reproductive Health in 2002. She received her DPhil (PhD) in Middle Eastern studies from Oxford University, attending as a Rhodes Scholar, and her MD from Harvard Medical School. Dr. Foster also holds both a Master's degree in international policy studies and a Bachelor's degree in international relations and biology from Stanford University. Dr. Foster has conducted both qualitative and quantitative research in the US, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, Tunisia, and Egypt and has authored and co-authored over thirty articles, book chapters, and reports dedicated to reproductive health issues in both the Middle East and the US. She has previously served on the board of directors of Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health, on the American Academy of Family Physician’s Public Health Commission, and as the 2003-2004 President of the Board of Directors of Medical Students for Choice. Dr. Foster currently serves on the advisory committee of the Global Network of Researchers on HIV/AIDS in the MENA region, the steering committee of International Consortium for Emergency Contraception, and the advisory board of Nursing Students for Choice and in 2004 was named one of Choice USA’s “30 Under-30 Activists for Reproductive Freedom.”

Kate Grindlay
Senior Project Manager

Kate Grindlay holds a Master of Science degree in Global Health and Population from Harvard University and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Urban Studies from the University of California, Berkeley. Prior to joining Ibis Reproductive Health, she worked at UCSF’s Women’s Global Health Imperative as a Site Leader and Data Manager Assistant on the MIRA trial to evaluate the diaphragm as a possible method of female-controlled HIV and STI prevention. She has also worked on qualitative research projects in South Asia, including assessing the impact of microfinance on women’s leadership and community development in India, and analyzing reasons for discontinuation among community health workers in Bangladesh. Her current work focuses on expanding the availability and accessibility of reproductive health services for women in the US and internationally.

Kelsey Holt
Senior Project Manager

Kelsey Holt holds a Master of Arts in medical anthropology from the University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center, and a Bachelor of Arts in biological anthropology with a minor in Spanish from Northwestern University. Prior to joining Ibis Reproductive Health in 2008, she worked as a Project Manager for Socios en Salud (a Partners in Health affiliate) in Lima, Peru, managing an income-generation project for low-income, recovered Multi-Drug Resistant Tuberculosis patients. She has also worked as an Evaluation Research Analyst for the Center for Research in the Health and Behavioral Sciences, evaluating STI/HIV physician training courses offered through the CDC’s Prevention Training Centers, and as a meeting leader for the Kaiser Permanente Viva Bien project for Latina women with diabetes. Kelsey’s previous research focused on women’s access to labor and delivery care in rural Bolivia. At Ibis, she manages research projects on positive people’s access to HIV treatment and care and young women’s reproductive health in South Africa, and reproductive health care access in the US military in addition to projects in Latin America, and the Middle East and North Africa; Kelsey also serves as the Executive Director of the Cervical Barrier Advancement Society (CBAS).

Ruth Manski
Research Assistant

Ruth Manski is a Research Assistant at Ibis Reproductive Health. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from Grinnell College. She recently completed a Fulbright Research Fellowship in Sri Lanka, where she conducted in-depth interviews and surveys with women about female kitchen culture and cooking practices. Prior to joining Ibis, Ruth interned with Healthy Acadia where she researched pandemic flu preparedness and food insecurity among low income women. 

Laurel Morrison
Director of Finance and Administration

Laurel Morrison is a Certified Public Accountant and holds a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration from the University of California at Berkeley. Prior to joining Ibis, Ms. Morrison served as the Chief Financial Officer and Vice President of Administration at Charles River Associates. Ms. Morrison has extensive experience in financial and operational oversight.

Becky Nelson
Office Assistant/Bookeeper
Becky Nelson holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Language and Literature as well as a certificate in Culture, Health and Science from Smith College. She also spent a year in Scotland studying English and Health at the University of Edinburgh. She continues to work as a part-time counselor at Four Women Health Services, a Massachusetts reproductive health clinic.

 

Megan Smith
Office Manager

Megan Smith holds a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology with a minor in Theater from Bryn Mawr College. Prior to joining Ibis, she worked as an access counselor at Women’s Medical Fund, an abortion fund based in Philadelphia. Most recently, her play The Waiting Room, which tells the stories of low-income women unable to afford an abortion, was produced for a second time in October 2010 by Planned Parenthood of Southern New Jersey and South Jersey National Organization for Women.

Britt Wahlin
Director of Development and Communications

Britt Wahlin holds a Bachelor’s degree in Modern Thought and Literature and a Master’s degree in Humanities from Stanford University.  Before joining Ibis in January 2007, she was a consultant specializing in philanthropy and social-issue media. She spearheaded film-based public awareness campaigns for the nonprofit media organization, Active Voice, as well as helped secure foundation funding and new business for Active Voice campaigns on topics ranging from immigration and political asylum to gender equity in science. For Greater Boston Funders for Women and Girls, she planned events and led outreach and communications efforts to educate private foundations about the benefits of funding women- and girl-serving organizations. Previously, she was a program officer at The Women’s Foundation in San Francisco (now the Women’s Foundation of California), where she made grants to women’s and girls’ advocacy organizations, ran a program that taught leadership and philanthropy skills to young women, and directed a mentorship program for welfare recipients transitioning into the workforce. She has served on the boards of the Girls After School Academy in San Francisco, Sojourner Feminist Institute, and Women in Film & Video/New England, and has published articles in film, nonprofit, and feminist publications. 

Dan Grossman
Senior Associate

Dan Grossman received his Bachelor’s in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale University and an M.D. from Stanford University. He completed his residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Prior to joining Ibis in 2005, he held the position of Health Specialist at the Population Council in Mexico City. While at the Council, his work included qualitative research on women’s experiences with misoprostol abortion, developing an acceptability trial of female-controlled barrier methods, designing training materials on emergency contraception, and training on medication abortion. His current work focuses on improving access to contraception and safe abortion in both the US and Latin America, as well as on barrier methods for HIV prevention. Dr. Grossman also works as a clinician part-time at St. Luke’s Women’s Center in San Francisco and has a clinical faculty appointment at UCSF in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences.

Diana Lara-Pineda
Project Manager
Diana Lara-Pineda is based at Ibis’s San Francisco office and is active in Ibis’s work in the Latin America and Caribbean region, where she has eight years of experience in conducting research. Dr. Lara-Pineda was an Associate in the Reproductive Health Program at the Population Council’s Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean based in Mexico City from 2000 to 2006. She has been in charge of designing, supervising, and conducting studies, collaborating in proposal writing, conducting quantitative and qualitative analysis, publishing papers in peer-reviewed journals, and presenting studies in national and international conferences. Currently, Dr. Lara-Pineda also works as a consultant for the Population Council Mexico office. She is a physician and received a Master’s in Population and Health from the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana in Mexico City.

Naomi Lince
Senior Associate

Naomi Lince holds a Bachelor of Arts in Biology and International Affairs from Macalester College and a Master’s of Public Health and Master's of International Affairs from Columbia University. She is currently a PhD candidate in Health Economics at the University of Cape Town. She has over ten years of experience in qualitative and quantitative research methods, including leading efforts to ensure ethical oversight in large multi-site studies. Her work has focused on women-initiated HIV prevention technologies, HIV and reproductive health service integration, young women’s reproductive health, and improving access to high quality reproductive health services with a special focus on abortion and family planning services.

Jabu Sibeko
Project Manager

Jabu Sibeko holds an Honors degree in Psychology from the University of Pretoria, and is registered with the HPCSA as a student psychologist. Currently, she is completing her Masters in Research Psychology through the University of the Witwatersrand. Prior to joining Ibis, she worked at the Perinatal HIV Research Unit under the community-based voluntary counseling and testing program, called Project Accept. She later joined the Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Institute (WRHI) where she worked on HIV prevention research, including behavioral interventions and target groups such as couples, community leaders, service providers, youth, sex workers and people with early diagnosis of HIV. Ms. Sibeko has specialized in qualitative studies, though she also has quantitative experience. Her research interests include women’s reproductive health, rights and well being.