Absera Melaku

Absera Melaku is a public health practitioner and the program manager for the University of Chicago, previously for the Center for Global Health. She provided overall direction for the center by managing its long-term strategy, developing and managing numerous education programs and initiatives, and overseeing the operational infrastructure. She developed interdisciplinary, collaborative relationships with non-University partners and University faculty, students, and staff to further the center’s mission to broaden global health education, training, research, advocacy, and engagement. Melaku reinforces the University of Chicago’s strengths in fields such as the humanities, life sciences, social sciences, medicine, public policy, and others, and uses this interdisciplinary focus to encourage and foster innovative approaches to the various health challenges faced by residents of the South Side of Chicago and by people across the world alike. Before coming to the center, Melaku served as research and grants manager for the Institute for Policy Research Two-Generation Education Research Initiative at Northwestern University. In collaboration with investigators from Columbia and Harvard Universities, she contributed to multiple mixed-methods antipoverty studies examining the implementation and effectiveness of two-generation education interventions and the intersection of policy and practice for economically disadvantaged families and their children. She received her Master of Medical Anthropology and Master of Public Health degrees from Case Western Reserve University. Melaku is a Justice Fellow and advisory council member for Avodah, sits on the Auxiliary Board of the Ethiopian Community Association of Chicago, and mentors refugee youth through the GirlForward program.