Uttara Bharath

Uttara brings a global public health perspective to Sapien Labs, particularly with respect to practical ways to deliver research insights in cognitive and mental health as effective public health communication.

For the last two decades, as part of the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs Uttara has lived and worked across Africa and Asia focused on the design and implementation of various public health communication programs addressing the behavioral, social and normative aspects of a range of health issues including HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases, Maternal and Child Health, Suicide Prevention, Child Abuse, Early Childhood Development and more recently COVID-19. She is also the founder of Nalamdana, a non-profit for health communication in India, which she founded in 1993 as an echoing green fellow. She continues to serve on Nalamdana’s Board of Trustees providing technical guidance to its projects, research, and planning, as well as training and workshops.

Uttara holds an MPH from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and a BA in English from Wellesley College.

“Given my area of expertise in behavioural science, I am particularly interested in the social determinants of cognitive development – the enablers, inhibitors and barriers. Understanding these better will go a long way in strengthening caregiving and education strategies in early childhood, childhood and adolescence.”