Our team are experts in nutrition research, assessments, and the treatment and management of acute malnutrition.
They provide direct and remote support for the planning and implementation of nutrition assessments and work tirelessly to improve the quality of nutrition programmes across the world.
Alexandra Rutishauser-Perera
Director of Nutrition and Health
Alexandra is a trilingual expert on nutrition with over 18 years of experience designing, implementing and managing global nutrition and public health programmes at both the field and headquarters level in more than 17 countries. Alexandra holds a nursing and tropical medicine diploma and a Master’s degree in Public Health Nutrition.
In her current role, she has managed teams with widely varying levels of technical expertise, ranging from senior technical staff to community health workers. She is a Learning and Performance Institute certified trainer and regularly teaches Nutrition in Emergencies training for donors, five UK universities, the American University of Beirut and UK-Med.
She has conducted and contributed to several programme evaluations and research. She is part of the Strategic advisory Group of the Global Nutrition Cluster (GNC), co-leads the GNC TA Nutrition Information System Working Group, coordinates the Kwashiorkor Working group, and is part of the UK Non-Communicable Diseases and Infant Feeding in Emergencies Working groups.
She has led multiple Community Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) and IYCF-E (Infant and Young Child Feeding in Emergencies) projects, advising governments on IYCF-E strategies, such as Ethiopia, and adaptation of CMAM programmes with UNICEF Somalia. She recently worked with FHI 360 to co-develop a guide on IYCF-E assessments.
Lenka Blanárová
Head of Nutrition
Lenka is an established expert in nutrition assessments and evaluations with a track record of around 60 successfully conducted and/or supervised assignments globally, including a facilitation of regional/national stakeholder workshops, a development of guidance and data collection tools.
She is an enthusiastic coach and mentor with rich experience in developing and delivering in-person and virtual training and workshops, including technical backstopping and quality assurance support.
Lenka is an experienced qualitative researcher with proven analytical skills in the fields of health and nutrition, mental health and care practices, food security and livelihoods, water, sanitation and hygiene, and gender.
She is an ardent advocate of evidence-based programming and mixed methods’ research design, with great passion for participatory research techniques. With more than 15 years of progressive professional experience in humanitarian and development sectors, she also supports in-country teams with the operationalisation of learnings into programming.
Uwimana Sebinwa
Senior Nutrition Assessment Advisor
Uwimana is a Senior Nutrition Assessment Advisor with 15 years of experience in implementing and coordinating health and nutrition programs and assessments with Action Against Hunger, in both emergency and development contexts.
Her areas of expertise include Integrated Management of Acute Malnutrition (IMAM) and Maternal, Infant and Young Child Feeding (MIYCF) programming, nutrition in emergencies, CMAM/IMAM coverage surveys, and qualitative studies.
As part of the No Wasted Lives initiative, she has managed a portfolio of operational research projects focused on improving the quality, coverage, and cost-effectiveness of acute malnutrition programs across the world.
Recently, she supported the implementation of an operational research on the use of a reduced dose of Ready to Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) to treat severe acute malnutrition in the Democratic Republic of Congo and provided technical support to UNICEF in Zimbabwe for a national coverage assessment of the IMAM programme.
Throughout her career, she has built strong partnerships with government institutions and national and international organisations, championing the integration of acute malnutrition treatment and prevention into health systems.
Patrizia Pajak
Data Analyst and Research Advisor
Patrizia has 7 years of research experience, including 4 years in global health nutrition. She has strong capacity in both qualitative and quantitative data analysis, across various sectors such as nutrition, health, food security and livelihoods, infant and young child feeding, water, sanitation and hygiene, and gender.
She has experience conducting quantitative data analysis on DHS, MICS, SMART, and SENS surveys using R software. Additionally, she is skilled in qualitative data collection and thematic analysis using NVivo. She has successfully led multiple Link NCA mixed-methods studies in Sierra Leone, South Sudan and Bangladesh, and provided technical support for several others in Zimbabwe, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Algeria.
She has provided technical support to the qualitative data collection in a national IMAM coverage assessment for UNICEF Zimbabwe and analysed data from a recent coverage assessment in Nepal using the SLEAC methodology. Lastly, she is the first author of a global scoping review on alternative Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food formulations, which is pending publication.
Mthulisi Dube
Senior Nutrition Advisor
Mthulisi is a Senior Nutrition Advisor with over 15 years of professional experience in both nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive programming with strong understanding of issues in the developing and humanitarian sector.
He has a strong background in supporting emergency responses, including deployments to challenging settings and is highly skilled in the management and prevention of acute malnutrition, with experience in setting up and implementing effective nutrition interventions in challenging environments.
He has expertise in assessments with focus on nutrition and food security assessments in emergency and development settings. He has experience in survey design, implementation and analysis including SMART survey, HEA and KABP surveys. He has a proven ability to lead teams during nutrition assessments and development of assessment protocols.
His key achievements include leading research to develop standardised re-lactation protocols in Zimbabwe, supervising multiple SMART surveys, baseline, endline and evaluations for multiple projects and leading multiple vulnerability assessments. He is a multilingual professional who is fluent in English, Ndebele, Xhosa, Shona and has a basic understanding of French and Kiswahili.
