Dr Sukriti Chauhan, an INLAKS scholar, is a trained lawyer with a Masters in International Development Law and Human Rights from Warwick University, UK. She has close to a decade of advocacy and communications expertise in public health and human rights, working with the highest offices in India, including the Honourable President and Prime Minister. She started her career with PATH, India, working closely on HIV/AIDS, sexual reproductive health, cervical cancer prevention, and maternal and child health.

 

As a Director at Global Health Strategies, Sukriti led the Tuberculosis Control and Prevention Project, resulting in national-level policy changes and a coalition of members of parliament, as well as set up the $50 million funding pool under the Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative in India. She continues to work closely with Dr Soumya Swaminathan, Chief Scientist, World Health Organisation on mental health in India. In her last role as a donor, she led a four statewide programme with a consortium of ten partners on adolescent health, nutrition and child protection. She also spearheaded the curation of a five-year strategy for the Tata Trusts, India Health Fund focused on Tuberculosis and Malaria elimination in India. 

 

She collaborated with the Indian Council of Medical Research to set up a Communications Unit to build the capacity of scientists to effectively and credibly relay scientific evidence to the public and key decision-makers. She also spearheaded the implementation of a champions-based strategy to create an enabling environment for the uptake of family planning services with a focus on spacing and access to the basket of contraceptive choices, with a rights-based perspective in six states in India. Recently awarded her PhD titled 'Legal and Social Impact of HIV/AIDS on Abandoned Housewives in Kolkata and Delhi' from the Jawaharlal Nehru University, Sukriti has widely presented and published her work at the global and national level.