About > Secretariat

The Secretariat served as JLICA's administrative and operational branch, responsible for program objectives and work product deadlines. The Secretariat also functioned as the Initiative's communications hub, coordinating the exchange of information between JLICA leadership, Learning Groups, partner institutions and the general public.

Program duties were split between two offices, one in Boston, Massachusetts at Harvard University's FXB Center for Health and Human Rights and the other at FXB International headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.

The JLICA Secretariat included two Co-Directors who oversaw all program management and administrative functions and a project manager, who performed day-to-day administrative and communications tasks.

Secretariat Staff Biographies

Alayne Adams, Co-Director

Based in Geneva, Dr. Adams is the Co-Director of the JLICA Secretariat. Prior to joining JLICA, she was a faculty member at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. She received her doctorate in Public Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and pursued post-doctoral studies as a MacArthur Fellow at Harvard University's Center for Population and Development Studies. Her research interests concern the social and behavioral determinants of health including women's social networks, community social capital, poverty, and gender. Other areas of expertise include participatory research, the development of innovative approaches to qualitative data collection and analysis, and problem-based learning. In addition to her academic pursuits, Dr. Adams has lived and worked extensively in Africa (Mali and Botswana), has acted as a research consultant for UNICEF, UNDP and the Aga Khan Foundation. She has sustained 15 year research collaboration with BRAC, a large NGO in Bangladesh involved in women's development, poverty alleviation and health, and is currently an international faculty member at BRAC University's James P. Grant School of Public Health.

Prior to her appointment at Columbia, Dr. Adams was a MacArthur Fellow at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies. As a Commonwealth Scholar, she received her doctoral training at the London School of Hygiene Tropical Medicine. Undergraduate studies in political science were pursued at McGill University

Alec Irwin, Co-Director

Alec Irwin is an ethicist and public health policy analyst whose primary areas of work include: (1) HIV/AIDS policy; (2) the underlying social and political determinants of health; and (3) human-rights based approaches to health. After completing a Ph.D. in the philosophy of religion in Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Irwin taught for four years as an Assistant Professor at Amherst College. In 2002, Irwin left Amherst to work full time under Dr. Jim Kim at the Boston-based health charity Partners In Health and subsequently at the World Health Organization, Geneva. In 2003, as a member of the Transition Team for incoming WHO Director-General LEE Jong-wook, Irwin contributed to the preparation of the new Director-General's global health leadership agenda. Subsequently, Irwin accepted an offer to remain at WHO in the Department of Equity, Poverty and Social Determinants of Health (EIP/EQH), where he served as a member of the technical secretariat of the Commission on Social Determinants of Health. While at WHO, Irwin was a principal writer on two World Health Reports: WHR 2003: Shaping the future, and WHR 2004: HIV/AIDS: Changing history. He was also a member of the Task Force which drafted WHO's eleventh General Programme of Work (GPW), the organization's principal long-range planning document, covering the period 2007-2015. Irwin contributed in particular to drafting the sections of the GPW dealing with health equity, the social determinants of health and an ethical framework for global public health. Irwin was a co-editor of and contributor to the book Dying for Growth: Global Inequality and the Health of the Poor (2000). Through a series of regional case studies and thematic chapters, the book explored the impact of recent patterns of global economic and political change on the health of poor people. Irwin's 2003 book Global AIDS: Myths and Facts, written with Joyce Millen and Dorothy Fallows, continues to enjoy frequent course adoptions in academic institutions and has been translated into Spanish and Japanese.

Kavitha Nallathambi, Project Manager

Kavitha Nallathambi provided key administrative support to JLICA, coordinated work among the Initiative’s four learning groups, and contributed to communications and advocacy. Prior to JLICA, Ms. Nallathambi worked at the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia as an administrative and research assistant for Peter Bell, President Emeritus of CARE USA. She received her Master of Science in Development Studies from the London School of Economics. Her thesis work focused on creating incentives to fund research and development for neglected diseases related to poverty. She obtained a Bachelor of Arts at Emory University, in International Studies and Journalism. She has interned for major media organizations including CNN Headline News, ABC News, and Cox Newspapers. Additionally, she worked as a research assistant at the Stanhope Centre for Communications Policy Research in London. Ms. Nallathambi speaks Tamil and French. She has been an editor for OneWorld UK country guides and her interests also include writing poetry and short stories.

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