Tolu Okitika

Tolu provides operational oversight and management of the Geospatial Health and Development team. She also leads strategic initiatives within the Malaria Atlas Project aimed at capacity building, expanding global collaborations and enhancing stakeholder engagement.

She has extensive program management expertise in the development and implementation of research projects across various public health domains in the academic and non-profit sectors. Tolu’s key focus areas are: i) maximizing resource efficiencies to drive excellent performance and innovation, ii) synthesizing evidence-based research in global health policy formulation and implementation.

Prior to joining the GHD team, Tolu managed a portfolio of respiratory health research programs within the Children’s Lung Health team at Telethon Kids including the Global Lung Function Initiative (GLI) to develop global, all-age, multiethnic reference values for various lung function tests. Previously, she was an Associate Program Officer with the Malaria PST at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. At the University of Washington (UW) in Seattle, she led qualitative research projects including an environmental health community organization capacity needs assessment as part of the UW Superfund Research Program and, the evaluation of a hands-on, interactive game to increase public interest in global health.

Tolu holds a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree and a graduate certificate in Global Health both from the University of Washington Seattle. She is also a certified Project Management Professional (PMP).