Biography
Blair Palmer currently is a Senior Director on UNICEF USA’s Foundation Partnerships team, where she has oversight of a portfolio of nearly $900M of funding under managment, and was formerly with UNICEF’s Office of Innovation. She is responsible for sourcing new projects and ideas to connect stakeholders with the international development and humanitarian landscape. She has held several posts within the United Nations, including at UNICEF, the World Health Organization and UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) based at the Centre for Humanitarian Data in the Hague, Netherlands.
Previously, Blair has worked to advance mobile health technology as a Director at Medic Mobile, conducted infectious disease research at the University of California-San Francisco and the Institute for OneWorld Health, and led corporate responsibility efforts to improve access to healthcare worldwide as Senior Manager of HIV/AIDS Prevention, Treatment and Care for Levi Strauss & Co., and as Manager of Public Affairs at Gilead Sciences. For her work, Dell Computers named Blair to its #Inspire100 list of world changers in entrepreneurship and philanthropy who use technology to empower and inspire others.
Blair is currently pursuing a Doctorate in Public Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, under the supervision of Dr. Leesa Lin and Dr. Shelley Mays. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Neuroscience from Vanderbilt University and a Master’s in Public Health with a concentration in epidemiology and infectious diseases from Yale University, where she was nominated for a Fulbright Scholarship to Zimbabwe.
