Monalisa Padhee

Monalisa Padhee is a medical researcher focused on women’s health in rural India. She’s the program head for the Women Wellness Initiative at Barefoot College, a grassroots organization that developed a curriculum to teach illiterate girls and women about menstruation and their bodies, and trains women in remote villages to lead and share knowledge with their communities. After earning her PhD at University of South Australia, studying impacts of prenatal and pre-pregnancy nutrition, Padhee wanted to understand her research’s relevancy to women in rural India, and returned to her home country. She is an Atlantic Fellow for Health Equity and a 2019 Aspen Institute New Voices Fellow.