Abigail Mulugeta

Abigail graduated from the University of Washington with a Bachelor of Arts in Public Health- Global Health and a minor in Informatics in 2021. While pursuing her undergraduate degree, she worked as a Student Data Extractions Analyst at the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation, where she extracted and organized data from global health research on various topics for contribution to the annual Global Burden of Disease, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD). Most recently, Abigail worked as a Research Fellow at St. Paul's Hospital Millennium Medical College in Addis Ababa, where she researched methods of improving family planning counseling and follow-up in Ethiopia and Kenya. She volunteered with Path From Poverty as a Research Assistant, working to perform quantitative analyses of the efficacy of interventions implemented in rural Kenya to improve water quality and access. Her interests in global health are health program design, monitoring and evaluation; rural health; and sexual/ reproductive health.

Abigail worked on nine projects during her two-year engagement at START, acting as Project Manager for two of them. Below are highlights from two of the projects Abigail worked on:

• STIs as a Cause of Infertility in Sub-Saharan Africa: The START team conducted literature reviews of studies assessing the association between five key STIs (chlamydia, gonorrhea, T. vaginalis, M. genitalium, and syphilis) and both PID and infertility. Literature was also reviewed to identify the prevalence of infertility and the five key STIs as well as evidence of an association between PID and infertility directly. This series of literature reviews was used to generate data visualizations and a ranked list of the STIs in terms of importance and relevance for the Gates Foundation's WHI PST strategy.
  
• Women's Health R&D Workforce: The START Team conducted a published and grey literature review to identify gaps in the Women's Health R&D workforce, focusing on sub- Saharan Africa. The aim is to highlight critical needs in research capacity, funding opportunities, and participation, aiming to enhance networks and research output in Women's Health through targeted workforce development strategies.

Abigail graduated with her Master of Public Health with the Department of Global Health from the University of Washington.