International Advisory Committee


Diana Namumbejja AbwoyeDiana Namumbejja Abwoye is a MSN-Family Nurse Practitioner candidate at Simmons University. A board member and global partner of Our Bodies Ourselves, she translated and published relevant chapters of Our Bodies Ourselves’ latest edition into Luganda and continues to travel across Uganda hosting discussions with rural women and availing free copies of her translation. 

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Renu Adhikari is the Founding Chairperson of Women’s Rehabilitation Centre (WOREC) Nepal, National Alliance of Women Human Rights Defenders (NAWHRD), and Tarangini Foundation. As a medical doctor and public health professional, she has worked to establish preventive and curative health programs for rural Nepali women.

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Alana CattapanAlana Cattapan is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Waterloo, where she studies gendered inclusion in policy making, identifying links between the state, reproductive politics, and the commercialization of the body. She is also a board member of the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women and in the organizing group Rise Up! A Digital Archive of Feminist Activism. 

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Ayesha ChatterjeeAyesha Chatterjee is the former Program Manager at the Our Bodies Ourselves Global Initiative. Her leadership at OBOS resulted in culturally adapted resources based on Our Bodies, Ourselves in 12 languages and the development and launch of the Surrogacy360 website.

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Kristen CheneyKristen Cheney is Associate Professor of Children and Youth Studies for the International Institute of Social Studies, a graduate development studies institute in The Hague, Netherlands. In 2014, she hosted the International Forum on Intercountry Adoption and Global Surrogacy there.

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Raquel CoolRaquel Cool is a founding member of We Are Egg Donors (WAED), a volunteer-run women’s health organization with 2,000+ egg donor members across the world. WAED is regularly featured in media outlets including The New York Times, The Atlantic, NBC, WIRED, and others.

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Daisy DeomampoDaisy Deomampo is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Fordham University. She is a cultural and medical anthropologist whose research interests include science and technology studies, gender and critical race studies, and bioethics and social justice.

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Isabel FuldaIsabel Fulda holds a B.A. in Political Science and International Relations and an M.A. on Legal and Political Theory from UCL, London. Since 2012, she has worked at GIRE (Grupo de Información en Reproducción Elegida/Information Group on Reproductive Choice), a Mexican NGO dedicated to the promotion and defense of reproductive rights and justice, in different positions.

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Nesta Johnson has focused her career upon advocating for the rights of children and families, particularly in the child welfare arena. Nesta graduated in 2008 with a BA from Stony Brook University, where she majored in Philosophy, and served as the Distinguished Alumni speaker at the 2015 departmental graduation ceremony. Nesta was awarded her JD from the George Washington University Law School in 2013. While attending law school, Nesta did clinical work in medical torts, domestic violence advocacy and family law.

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Amrita PandeAmrita Pande, author of Wombs in Labor: Transnational Commercial Surrogacy in India (Columbia University Press, 2014), is Associate Professor in the sociology department at University of Cape Town. Her research focuses on the intersection of globalization and the intimate.

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Marcin Smietana is an affiliated lecturer in the Reproductive Sociology Research Group (ReproSoc) at the University of Cambridge. Following his PhD from the University of Barcelona, he held the posts of Marie Curie research fellow at UC Berkeley (2014-2016), research associate (2016-2021) and senior research associate (2021-2022) in ReproSoc at Cambridge. His research focuses on gay men who create families through surrogacy and adoption in the UK, USA and Spain.

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Vasanti Jadva is a Lecturer in Reproductive Science at the Institute for Women’s Health, University College London. Her research examines the psychological well-being of parents and children in families created by assisted reproduction including IVF, egg donation, sperm donation and surrogacy. She has also studied the psychological health and experiences of surrogates and gamete donors.

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Deepa Venkatachalam is with Sama Resource Group for Women and Health, based in Delhi, India. She has been engaged over the past several years in research and policy advocacy on assisted reproductive technologies and surrogacy.

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