Paula Tavrow, PhD, MSc, MALD is the Director of UCLA’s Bixby Program in Population and Reproductive Health and Adjunct Professor in the Community Health Sciences Department at the UCLA School of Public Health.  She is also the founding Co-Director of the Center of Expertise in Women’s Health and Empowerment at the University of California Global Health Institute. Her current research interests center on adolescent reproductive health, coerced sex and the quality of primary health care in East Africa. Prior to coming to UCLA in 2002, Dr. Tavrow was the Deputy Research Director for the USAID-funded global Quality Assurance Project (1997-2001). She oversaw eleven operations research projects to improve the quality of rural health services in Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Dr. Tavrow also has served as a women’s health advisor and researcher at the University of Malawi’s Centre for Social Research (1993-95), a USAID health officer who helped design Tanzania’s National AIDS Control Program and National Family Planning Program (1987-90), a USAID assistant food for peace officer who assisted Ogadeni refugees in Somalia (1984-86), and a project evaluator for nutrition activities in the Bandundu region of Zaire (1984). She received her AB (magna cum laude) from Harvard-Radcliffe College, her MALD from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, and her MSc and PhD from the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.