Dr. Yvette Efevbera is a global health and equity leader working to create a world where young people and women are healthy, happy, unafraid, and unapologetic. She has nearly 15 years of experience across academic, non-profit, and philanthropic spaces at the intersection of research, programs, policy, and advocacy. Yvette’s work advancing health, development, gender equality, education, and equity has spanned several countries, with a focus on sub-Saharan Africa and the diaspora.

Yvette is currently an Advisor in Gender-Based Violence, Child Marriage, and Adolescent Health at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; in these roles, she develops new strategies, builds partnerships, and leads multi-million-dollar investments to advance the field addressing barriers girls and women face. Prior, she was an NIH-funded Principal Investigator at Harvard University and worked for several organizations, including Wellspring Philanthropic Fund, World Bank, UBS Optimus Foundation, Harvard Center for Population Studies in Burundi, and mothers2mothers in Malawi as a 2011-12 Global Health Corps fellow.

Yvette has held numerous board and advisory positions including with the Adolescent Girls Investment Plan (AGIP); Gates Foundation Bold Conversations in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Advisory Group; and the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine. Yvette is also a certified DEI consultant. She holds a Bachelor of Arts, with High Honors from Michigan State University, and a Master of Science and Doctor of Science from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.