Senior Associate

Whitney Fry is a global health and gender specialist with a particular focus on social science research and positive systems change in complex environments. Whitney is based in Chapel Hill, NC (USA) and offers facilitation, research, and technical assistance to Iris Group clients. Her current portfolio includes managing the Chroma Collective, a community of gender practitioners from leading donor and funder institutions, and supporting the WASHPaLS #2 Menstrual Health and Hygiene (MHH) Action Plan development for USAID. Previous efforts include the District Alliance for Safe Housing (DASH) in Washington, DC MHH training and technical assistance; WASHPaLS MHH in the Workplace Action Research in Kenya and Ethiopia; WASHPaLS Kenya RAPID performance evaluation; SHOPS Plus Tanzania Private Sector gender-based violence (GBV) Network; Citywide Inclusive Sanitation (CWIS) Zambia and Uganda; Uganda Sanitation for Health Activity (USHA); and Jordan Communication, Advocacy, and Policy (J-CAP) project. In these various roles, Whitney provided strategic gender and social inclusion technical insight, with a transformative lens, to program research and evaluations, gender analyses, training and facilitation, and pilot initiatives.

 

Whitney joined Iris Group after 15 years of humanitarian and development NGO, social enterprise, and independent consulting experience, where she contributed to improved health and gender outcomes in Uganda, Jordan, Sudan, South Sudan, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, and the United States. Whitney both developed and led efforts in health system strengthening, quality improvement of programs and organizational systems, GBV prevention efforts, and gender transformative programming. Additionally, Whitney brings seasoned facilitation experience in strengths-based methodologies, including Appreciative Inquiry, to the Iris Group team.

 

Whitney holds a DrPH in Health Policy and Management from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where her research focused on GBV prevention through promoting positive masculinity development among refugee male youth in Kakuma, Kenya. Prior to her doctorate, she received an MPH in International Health and Complex Emergencies from Tulane University and a BA in biology from Taylor University.