Leah Wohlgemuth, MPH
DrPH Student
DrPH Program
Email:
About
Leah Wohlgemuth is the senior technical advisor for neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) at Sightsavers focusing on behavior change and the integration of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) into NTD programs. She currently lives in London where she supports the overall strategic direction and implementation of WASH and Behavior Change programs within Sightsavers as well as supporting their COVID-19 response. Prior to living in the UK, Leah lived in Ethiopia where she served as the regional program advisor for Sightsavers supporting their two large-scale trachoma grants. While in Ethiopia, Leah supported coordination efforts between the WASH and NTD sectors, including planning, taskforce development and implementation of joint WASH and NTD activities. Leah also served as the chair of the WASH Working group of the NTD NGO Network (NNN), which supports NGOs and the global community in the development of best practices, toolkits and integrated solutions for behavior change and WASH in NTDs. She became keenly interested in issues of water and sanitation and their effect on human populations while working on her master’s thesis as part of the Trachoma Prevention Initiative in Kampala, Uganda. Leah continued to hone her psychosocial research, program planning, and monitoring and evaluation skills as a graduate student at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and then as a research analyst at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Communication. She has traveled to and worked in over 25 countries to support implementation of behavior change activities and WASH integration within NTD programs.