People

Bixby Center Team

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Ndola Prata, MD, MSc

Faculty Director; Current Fred H. Bixby Endowed Chair in Population and Family Planning

Professor Ndola Prata began her career practicing medicine in Angola for 10 years and served as Head of the Social Statistics Department at the National Institute of Statistics of Angola. Prata’s current research is based in sub-Saharan Africa, she is especially interested in family planning, abortion, reproductive health, women’s health and empowerment, and maternal mortality.

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Karen Weidert, MPH

Executive Director

Karen Weidert is Bixby Center’s Executive Director, applying more than 15 years of experience in international and domestic program management to the Bixby Center’s ongoing efforts to increase access to family planning and safe abortion in sub-Saharan Africa. 

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Siti Juwariyah, MBA

Research Center Manager

Siti Juwariyah(link is external) is a UC Berkeley alumna.  She has more than 15 years of UC work experience in diverse positions.  Currently she is the Bixby Center manager.  She facilitates the needs of Finance,  HR, and Compensation.  She manages budgeting and funding as needed.  She facilitates services for IT networks and computer systems for business operations.  She creates and updates the website and handles many means of communication, including social media.   She is in charge of Event Planning and Space Management. As the Administrative Officer, she is responsible for maintaining compliance with the University’s policies and procedures.  She joined the Bixby Center in January 2019.

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Malcolm Potts, MB, BChir, PhD, FRCOG

Founder, Bixby Center; Co-Founder, Oasis Initiative

Malcolm Potts is a Cambridge trained obstetrician and reproductive scientist. He is a professor in Maternal and Child Health, the first and former (1992-2013) holder of the Fred H. Bixby Endowed Chair in Population and Family Planning in the School of Public Health, and developed the Bixby Center with a team of young experts. 

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Alisha Graves, MPH

Co-founder, OASIS Initiative

Alisha Graves is Co-Founder of the OASIS Initiative. Alisha completed her MPH in International Maternal and Child Health at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health in 2006. She worked for six years as Senior Program Manager for Venture Strategies Innovations to improve access to misoprostol – a generic, essential medicine. 

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Paige Passano, MPH

Strategic Advisor, Oasis Initiative

Paige Passano is a specialist with the Bixby Center and Senior Program Officer with the OASIS Initiative, with a special interest in the prevention of adverse health outcomes through high impact, multigenerational solutions such as girls’ education/empowerment and family planning. 

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Daniel Perlman, PhD

Founder, Center for Girls Education

Daniel Perlman, Ph.D., a research medical anthropologist at the Bixby Center, has more than twenty years experience planning, implementing, and evaluating primary health care programs in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. His graduate courses at the School of Public Health include qualitative research methods, the social dimensions of international health, and the ethics of international health research. 

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