Judith F. Helzner Director, Population and Reproductive Health
Email: jhelzner at macfound dot org
Judith F. Helzner is the Director of the Population & Reproductive Health (PRH) area of the Foundation's Program on Global Security & Sustainability.
Helzner joined the Foundation in July, 2002, and serves as a strategic advisor to staff members in the Mexico, Nigeria and India offices on grantmaking related to population issues. She is also responsible for grants made to international organizations in the population field.
Prior to joining the Foundation, Helzner was with the International Planned Parenthood Federation, Western Hemisphere Region, where she first served as Director of Program Coordination starting in 1987 and was later named Director of Sexual and Reproductive Health, a position she held from 1997 to 2002. Helzner has also worked with the International Women's Health Coalition (1985-1987), with Private Agencies Collaborating Together (1982-1984), and with Pathfinder Fund in Boston (1977-1982). She has been a consultant to several organizations, including the World Health Organization and USAID, where she Co-chaired its Interagency Gender Working Group Subcommittee on Men & Reproductive Health.
Helzner has published articles and book reviews in journals such as Studies in Family Planning and International Family Planning Perspectives. She graduated from Tufts University with a bachelor's degree in French and received master's degrees in both Demography and International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania.
Poonam Muttreja Director, India Office
Email: pmuttreja at macfound dot org dot in
Poonam Muttreja is Director of MacArthur's India Office and is responsible for all Population & Reproductive Health grants in India.
Prior to joining the Foundation in 1994, Muttreja worked briefly with UNDP in India and helped develop a NGO strategy for that organization. In Cambridge, Massachusetts, Muttreja directed an environmental program concerned with orienting policy makers on issues of development, environment and poverty (1986-1992). She also taught courses on social action and human development at both Hampshire College (Spring 1992) in Maine and Earlham College (Fall 1992) in Indiana. Muttreja was active in the NGO sector in India. She was Founding Director of Ashoka Foundation, a society that works with artisans, and SRUTI, a society that awards fellowships to development activists (1978-1986).
Muttreja has a Master's Degree in Public Administration (1991) from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and a Bachelor's Degree in Psychology (1977) from the University of Delhi.
Kole A. Shettima Director, Africa Office, and Co-Chair, Higher Education Initiative in Africa
Kole Shettima is the Director of the Foundation's Africa Office in Abuja, Nigeria. He is responsible for grant making in the Population & Reproductive Health area, Human Rights and International Justice, and the Partnership for Higher Education in Africa.
Prior to joining the Foundation in 1999, Shettima taught at the University of Maiduguri (Nigeria), the University of Toronto, and at Ohio University. He was State Coordinator, and National Education Coordinator of Women in Nigeria; Coordinator of the Working Group on Nigeria, Toronto; and Co-chair of the Economic Justice Working Group of the Inter-Church Coalition on Africa, Toronto. Shettima is on the board of several organizations including the Center for Democracy and Development. He has published in several academic journals including Africa Development, Review of African Political Economy, African Studies Review and Journal of Asian and African Studies.
Shettima has a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto, a Masters Degree from Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria and his undergraduate degree is from the University of Maiduguri where he has also been a faculty member.
Sharon Bissell Sotelo is Acting Director for the Foundation’s Mexico Office and Program Officer for the Foundation’s grantmaking in Population and Reproductive Health, working with organizations in maternal mortality prevention and youth reproductive health promotion. Much of this work centers on indigenous and rural populations in Mexico, and seeks to improve access to and quality of reproductive and sexual health services for women and young people.
She sits on the Technology Grants Committee that supports initiatives to develop and use new technologies to promote social development. Prior to joining MacArthur in 2001, she worked at the Grupo de Información en Reproducción Elegida (Information Group on Reproductive Choice, GIRE), a leading reproductive rights organization in Mexico, and as a consultant for numerous Mexican civil society organizations and networks. She holds a Master’s degree from Tulane University and diploma courses in gender, reproductive health and human rights from El Colegio de México and the Universidad Tecnológica de Monterrey in Mexico.
Erin Sines Program Officer, Population & Reproductive Health
Email: esines at macfound dot org
Erin Sines is a Program Officer in the Population and Reproductive Health area of the Foundation’s Program on Global Security and Sustainability.
Prior to joining the Foundation, Ms. Sines worked at the Population Reference Bureau, a Washington, D.C.-based NGO, where she provided strategic guidance, technical assistance, and capacity building in the use of data for reproductive health policy and program development. She worked closely with policymakers and researchers in Ethiopia, India, Kenya, and Mongolia. Earlier in her career, she worked on adolescent sexual and reproductive health in Latin America and conducted research on domestic maternal and child health issues. Ms. Sines has an M.P.H. from Columbia University and received her B.A. in Spanish and International Politics from St. Mary’s College of Maryland.
