Dr Joy Lawn, B MedSci, MB BS, MRCP (Paeds), MPH PhD
Director Global Evidence and Policy,
Saving Newborn Lives-Save the Children-US
Cape Town, South Africa

Joy is an African-born paediatrician and perinatal epidemiologist. She has 20 years experience in newborn health especially in Africa, including 4 years as a lecturer and neonatalogist in Ghana. She shifted to public health and global estimation whilst at the WHO Collaborating Center, CDC Atlanta, USA (1998-2001), and then at the Institute of Child Health, London, UK (2001-2004), completing a Masters of Public Health at Emory University, Atlanta and PhD at University College London. She is now Director Global Evidence and Policy with the Gates-funded Saving Newborn Lives program of Save the Children-US. She works with governments and partners to integrate, scale up and evaluate newborn care, particularly in Africa, including a network of 6 large-scale effectiveness trials.
She co-leads the United Nation’s Child Health Epidemiology Reference Group’s Neonatal Group which developed the first cause-of-death estimates for 4 million neonatal deaths each year, published in The Lancet Neonatal series and WHO WHR 2005. She led a 60 author team from 14 organizations for the book “Opportunities for Africa’s Newborns” and then 7 country teams for African Science Development Initiative’s report “Science in Action – Saving the lives of Africa’s mothers, newborns and children”. She co-chairs the Countdown to 2015 technical subcommittee overseeing national data profiles and reports. Joy has recently presented a BBC documentary on progress and challenges for newborn survival in Malawi and Nepal.