Our team
ENN Chief Executive Officer
Nigel is a British humanitarian who has led international aid agencies in Africa and Asia for the last 30 years. He has overseen large scale humanitarian responses, including Concern Worldwide’s response to the 2005 Niger crisis as well as long term development programmes and campaigns for systemic change.
Previous to joining ENN, Nigel was based in Nairobi as the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Regional Director for East Africa and Yemen.
Technical Team
ENN Technical Director
Marie has been a Technical Director with ENN for 18 years and is also a member of ENN’s Board of Trustees. Marie is ENN’s technical lead on a growing portfolio of work on the Management of small & nutritionally At-risk Infants under six months & their Mothers (MAMI) including evaluation of an upcoming randomised control trial in Ethiopia in a LSHTM/GOAL/Jimma University partnership. Marie is Chair of the Advisory Board of the Eleanor Crook Foundation (ECF) and also the coordinator of an established UN/NGO interagency collaboration on infant and young child feeding in emergencies (IFE Core Group), co-chair of the Wasting Thematic Working Group of the Global Assistance Mechanism on Nutrition (GTAM), and a member of the Council of Research & Technical Advice on Severe Acute Malnutrition (CORTASAM) of the No Wasted Lives Initiative. Marie leads on, and contributes to, a wide range of normative (WHO) and programmatic guidance, such as HIV and infant feeding, HIV and infant feeding in emergencies, breastfeeding and Ebola, breastfeeding and Zika virus and Operational Guidance on Infant Feeding in Emergencies.
Marie studied Human Nutrition and Dietetics at Trinity College Dublin. She began her career as a Senior Paediatric Dietician before working for several years as an Emergency Nutritionist with Merlin and Research Nutritionist with UCL/Centre for Global Health and Save the Children. Her ambition through all her workstreams is to nurture practical common ground across humanitarian and development programming and sectors and to continue to learn; to that end, she is a part time PhD student at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine linked to her MAMI work portfolio in Ethiopia.
ENN Technical Director
Tanya joined ENN in 2017 bringing with her more than 20 years’ experience as a public health nutritionist spanning university research contexts, INGOs, Valid International, the UN, UK government, and as an independent consultant. She has an MSc in Public Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and a BA in Human Science from Oxford University.
Tanya is driven by a desire to better shape and translate research into doable, effective and equitable programmes. As an integral member of the research team responsible for developing Community-based Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) and subsequently driving the uptake of the approach within UNICEF, she was able to do exactly that. She subsequently broadened her focus, developing a number of technical reviews, exploring neglected areas in international nutrition, including maternal and adolescent nutrition, and the relationship between wasting and stunting, always highlighting key opportunities for improvements in programming and policy.
Tanya is ENN’s technical lead on our body of work on the relationship between Wasting and Stunting, including our USAID supported study in West Africa, the knowledge management and monitoring of the Global Technical Assistance Mechanism for Nutrition (GTAM), with whom she works closely with partners in UNICEF and World Vision, and also leads ENN’s resource forum for field practitioners, en-net.
Senior Technical Associate
Philip is an ENN Senior Technical Associate working across ENN’s portfolio, with specific focus on wasting and stunting, maternal nutrition, and management of acute malnutrition in infants.
Over the past 18 years Philip has split his time between humanitarian and academic work in the maternal and child health and nutrition fields. He holds a PhD and MSc. in public health nutrition from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). Prior to joining ENN Philip was an Assistant Professor at LSHTM, where his research focussed on the prevention of undernutrition. His doctoral work with MRC Gambia included the design and testing of a novel maternal micronutrient supplement. During his post-doctorate studies he supported clinical trials in India (nutrition-related behaviour change communication) and Nepal (maternal anaemia prevention). He co-organised LSHTM’s Nutrition in Emergencies MSc. module, and has been a lecturer for Masters courses at LSHTM, UCL and Nagasaki University.
Prior to his LSHTM work, Philip spent 10 years working on projects spanning community development, agricultural, environmental, disaster management and food security with various NGOs, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa. During this time, he worked as an emergency nutrition coordinator for Action Against Hunger, a Country Representative for Valid International’s research on acute malnutrition in Ethiopia, and a disaster management officer for Tearfund.
Philip’s ongoing research interests with ENN include how best to prevent undernutrition by focussing on maternal nutrition status across the life cycle.
Senior Technical Associate
Nicki Connell is a senior technical associate with ENN, and is Co-Editor of ENN’s flagship publication Field Exchange. She brings over 12 years’ experience to this role having qualified at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine with a MSc in Public Health Nutrition, after obtaining a BSc in Natural Sciences from the University of Bath. In 2019, Nicki was recognised for her efforts in the nutrition sector through being awarded an MBE for services to emergency nutrition crises abroad.
Previously, Nicki worked for the Eleanor Crook Foundation as their Nutrition Technical Director, where her main area of focus was leading the ongoing development of ECF’s research and implementation grantmaking strategy.
Nicki has also held various positions with international non-governmental organizations, including Save the Children, GOAL Ireland and ACF, and has worked across multiple countries including Bangladesh, Pakistan, South Sudan, Yemen, Ethiopia, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Niger, Sierra Leone and Myanmar. Key technical areas of interest to Nicki throughout her career include Management of small & nutritionally At-risk Infants under six months & their Mothers (MAMI), Infant and Young Child Feeding in Emergencies (IYCF-E), and Community-Based Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM).
She has contributed to multiple publications including the ‘highly commended’ book Nutrition for Developing Countries (British Medical Association Book Awards 2016).
Senior Technical Associate
Leah leads ENN’s deepening engagement in nutrition sensitive food systems transformation. She provides specialised technical support to donors and leads on developing ENNs strategic direction in nutrition within Food Systems. Leah also co-leads the large portfolio of work on improving the management of nutritionally at-risk infants under 6 months and their mothers (MAMI). She also provides technical support to existing project areas such as infant and young child feeding in emergencies (IYCFE) and emerging areas of work.
Leah has over 15 years of experience in public health nutrition focusing on improving humanitarian response for vulnerable groups such as women, children and the displaced. After her first Master in International Public Health from Tulane University, she gained experience from UNICEF, WFP, UNHCR, the Global Nutrition Cluster, and numerous NGOs in a wide range of African and Asian countries. Her first decade of experience impressed on her the intersectoral nature of the nutrition puzzle. She has authored a series of UNICEF programming guidance on integrating WASH and nutrition and spent a couple years establishing a strategic programmatic focus on WASH and health within WaterAid. This led to a second mid-career Masters in Sustainable Food Systems.
Nutrition Epidemiologist
Bridget is an epidemiologist (MSc Epidemiology, LSHTM) with a background in nutrition (MSc Nutrition, King’s College, London). Bridget has 25 years’ experience in the development and humanitarian sectors working for national and international agencies in operational, political and academic capacities on child and maternal nutrition and health and environmental projects.
She has worked with ENN for a decade and has headed research programmes in Niger and Pakistan (REFANI-Pakistan). She is currently analysing data looking at the impact of interventions aimed at wasting, on stunting. She is also a consultant in Nutrition Epidemiology and Research for the Multi-Donor-Action ‘Capacity 4 Nutrition (C4N)’ where she is responsible for monitoring and depicting stunting trends in the EC’s priority countries for nutrition, providing guidance on research methods and current scientific knowledge to identify emerging innovative approaches and supporting the EC EU Delegations on the design of country-level research and evaluations.
Senior Nutritionist
Natalie works with ENN as a Senior Nutritionist. She is responsible for the global coordination of ENN’s Knowledge Management work for the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement. The most significant of her responsibilities has been to oversee the development of a portfolio of case studies on sub-national, multi-sector nutrition programming. Natalie is part of the ENN team supporting knowledge management of the GTAM on nutrition and COVID-19 while working across several of ENN’s portfolio including co-authoring an ENN position on wasting in the context of undernutrition. She has particular interests in Wasting and Stunting, the Humanitarian and Development nexus of Nutrition programming and in situating Nutrition within the broader Humanitarian and Development landscape.
Natalie has an MSc in Public Health Nutrition from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Before joining ENN, she worked internationally for Concern Worldwide as an Emergency Nutrition Programme Manager, spending most of her time in South Sudan and Bangladesh, with Action Against Hunger UK and held nutrition roles with Philani Maternal Nutrition centre in South Africa and GOAL Ethiopia. Prior to this, Natalie worked in the field of HIV/ AIDS in Southern Africa.
Senior Nutritionist
Natasha is an ENN Senior Nutritionist working across ENN’s portfolio, with specific focus on Adolescent Nutrition, MAMI, Concurrent wasting and stunting (WaSt), and a new project on food systems.
Natasha completed her PhD at University College London, where her research considered the long-term effects of severe acute malnutrition in Malawi. She continued her research at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) exploring interventions for the Management of small & nutritionally At-risk Infants under six months & their Mothers (MAMI) and adolescent stunting. Natasha also spent time at the Hospital for Sick Kids in Toronto where she studied alternative treatment options for children with moderate acute malnutrition. She also taught the "Nutrition in Emergencies" course for Masters students at the University of Southampton.
Besides academia, Natasha has spent time working in a policy-steering position within the No Wasted Lives initiative at Action Against Hunger supporting research projects in Bangladesh, South Sudan, Kenya, and Mali.
Field Exchange Sub-Editor and Content Coordinator
Tom is the Sub-Editor and Content Coordinator for ENN’s publication Field Exchange. Tom is a public health nutritionist by training, gaining an MSc in Human Nutrition from the University of Glasgow before completing a second MSc, in Epidemiology, at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. Prior to joining ENN he worked as a nutrition consultant for a multidisciplinary healthcare clinic in the UK and spent time working on FCDO-funded development projects in Nigeria and South Africa.
Tom also has experience operating in a variety of roles within the public health/international development sectors, working with the University of Oxford, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, People’s Open Access Education Initiative, the National Health Service, and with asylum seekers in Calais.
Gwénola DesplatsGwen works with ENN as a nutrition advisor. She provides surge sub-editorial support to Field Exchange and as a native francophone, engages on translation quality assurance and French en-net. Building on her considerable experience of working in West Africa, she is supporting ENN to refresh and develop our francophone approach, including our regional and country level engagement, reach and content generation for our future strategy.
Gwen gained her MSc in International Nutrition from Tufts University in 2001. Since then she has worked in senior Nutrition roles in regional and country positions with several agencies including UNICEF and the UN World Food Programme. She has a particular interest in Infant and Young Child Feeding (IYCF), Vitamin A supplementation and the generation, management and curation of knowledge for different audiences, including through the design and implementation of large-scale surveys and research projects.
Dr Stephanie WrottesleyStephanie is a senior nutritionist working across ENN’s portfolio with a focus on nutrition during middle childhood and adolescence, as well as on women’s nutrition across adolescent and maternal life stages.
Stephanie has an MSc in Public Health Nutrition from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She completed her PhD at the SAMRC/Wits Developmental Pathways for Health Research Unit (DPHRU) at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in Johannesburg in 2018. This explored maternal nutritional status and dietary intake during pregnancy and the association with birth outcomes and neonatal body composition, in the context of HIV.
As a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at DPHRU Stephanie expanded her focus to how multiple maternal nutrition and health exposures influence fetal growth, birth outcomes and infant health trajectories during the first 1000 days in urban African settings, as well as how this may impact long term risk of obesity and non-communicable diseases. She has also contributed to quantitative and qualitative research in adolescent nutrition as part of the Transforming Adolescent Lives through Nutrition (TALENT) consortium; managed and supported dietary assessment research methods at DPHRU and taken part in research examining infant feeding practices in South Africa, as well as the assessment of caregiver-infant interactions and responsive parenting approaches.
Eilise BrennanEilise Brennan is a nutritionist working across ENN’s portfolio with a current focus on the Management of small & nutritionally At-risk Infants under six months & their Mothers (MAMI) and Maternal Nutrition.
Eilise gained her MSc in Nutrition for Global Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and has previously done consultancy work with ENN related to MAMI and Adolescent Nutrition.
Prior to ENN, Eilise worked with the USAID funded Suaahara II Program in Nepal, looking at homestead food production and the impact on food insecurity and dietary inequality gaps. She has also spent time in Mumbai, India with the Society for Nutrition, Education and Health Action.
Amir SamnaniAmir Ali is a nutritionist with more than 8 years’ experience as a public health professional with expertise in Maternal and Child Health and Nutrition. Amir has also held various positions with public health departments and international non-governmental organisations such as Action Against Hunger, Nutrition International and UNICEF, in both development and humanitarian contexts. His last assignment was with UNICEF Pakistan, as an Integrated Service Delivery Consultant in polio super-high risk councils of Sindh Province, working to ensure integrated services to communities living with multiple deprivations.
He holds an MSc in Health Policy & Management from the Aga Khan University, Pakistan and an MBA in Healthcare Management from Dow University of Health Sciences. Currently he is a PhD fellow of Population and Public Health from the Aga Khan University.
Amir has expertise in CMAM programme planning and implementation, and experience in research & nutrition assessments including SMART surveys, Link NCA and IPC Food Security analysis for Chronic and Acute Food Insecurity and acute malnutrition. Amir also holds IPC level 2 certification for advance analyst, and Co-facilitator for Acute Food Insecurity (IPC Version 3.0) awarded by IPC global support unit and IPC global steering committee.
MAMI Global Network Coordinator
Nicky Dent is a nutritionist with more than 20 years of experience working in public health nutrition in a diverse range of emergency and development contexts.
From community to global level, she has experience in programme design, implementation, and evaluation; policy and operational research; training and knowledge management.
Over the years, she has concentrated on the prevention and treatment of malnourished infants and children and their mothers, including operational research with early community-based approaches.
Nicky has an MSc in Nutrition and a post-graduate Diploma in Dietetics from King’s College, London. She has spent over 10 years living and working in various African countries, most recently in Ethiopia. She is currently a member of the WHO Wasting Guideline Development Group.
Jodine Chase Jodine Chase is the IFE Core Group Facilitator. Her role is to oversee the development of global policy guidance and training resources to fill gaps that hamper programming on infant and young child feeding support in emergencies. She represents ENN and the IFE Core Group in external fora including guidance development.
Jodine is an infant and maternal health advocate who has worked in various roles including as operations and communications lead for a Canadian midwifery association. She is co-founder of SafelyFed Canada, a national, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to the protection of infants and young children in emergencies through policies to support safe and appropriate feeding. Jodine is also a public relations and communications professional specialising in issues and crisis management. She is also currently the community manager for a global quality maternal and newborn care research alliance.
She is pursuing an interdisciplinary Master of Arts in Disaster and Emergency Management and Intercultural and Intergovernmental Communications. Jodine has worked for many breastfeeding and midwifery-related causes including advocating for the re-establishment of donor human milk banks and amending policies and legislation to protect birthing and breastfeeding rights.
Nutritionist
Rachael Menezes is a Nutritionist working across ENN's portfolio with a current focus on Infant Feeding in Emergencies (IFE). Rachael obtained her MSc in Nutrition for Global Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and her previous work with ENN focused primarily on IFE, Management of small & nutritionally At-risk Infants under six months & their Mothers (MAMI), and Maternal Nutrition.
Rachael also currently works part time co-ordinating the Public Health England funded Change4Life intervention, aimed at improving health and nutrition outcomes of pregnant women and children under 5 years old across the most vulnerable London boroughs. This work is mainly concerning low-income families and refugees, implementing evidence-based resources to optimise maternal nutrition and facilitate expectant parents' understanding of nutrition requirements throughout pregnancy. Prior to this, Rachael has worked with drug and sex trafficking victims in a nutritional rehabilitation clinic in Portugal, specifically with adolescent mothers and their infants. She has also worked on community nutrition projects with the homeless, families and children in Bournemouth.
Technical Associates
Anne BushAnne has more than 20 years’ experience in public health and nutrition at global and country level in humanitarian and development contexts. She has worked in a wide range of countries including Kenya, Somalia, Mozambique, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Indonesia and the UK. She has significant experience in policy and strategic development, programme design, development of technical guidance and tools, monitoring and evaluation, quality assurance and research.
During her career, she has provided technical assistance to donors, governments, UN agencies and NGOs. Specific areas of interest include multisectoral approaches to addressing malnutrition, bridging the humanitarian – development divide, the integration of nutrition and health through system strengthening, and community-based approaches.
Anne’s recent work with ENN has included developing a case study on Zambia's experience with the 1,000 Most Critical Days Programme and editing of Field Exchange. Prior to her work in international public health and nutrition, Anne studied dietetics at Leeds University and worked in the National Health Service as a Metabolic Dietitian. Anne then worked for three years as a nutritionist in Indonesia, from where her career continued in the international field. Anne has an MSc in Public Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Dr Kate SadlerKate is a public nutritionist with over 20 years of experience in the design, management, evaluation and research of nutrition interventions in Africa and Asia. She is currently ENN’s Study Coordinator and co- Principal Investigator for the Wasting-Stunting Study.
Kate has previously worked as a programme nutritionist in several countries in Africa, including Ethiopia, Malawi, Sudan, Rwanda and Burundi and has extensive applied research capacity in the area of nutrition and food security.
Kate gained her PhD in nutrition from UCL and was an integral part of the team responsible for the multi-country research on which the adoption of the CMAM approach (for the community-based management of acute malnutrition) was based. She has led many projects including the community case management of severe acute malnutrition in Bangladesh; linking livestock interventions to child health and nutrition in pastoralist areas of Africa; and the strengthening of nutrition across multi-sectoral programs (including HIV, health and livelihoods) in Ethiopia. She also supports the EU’s Nutrition Advisory Service on programme and research related issues.
Mark MyattMark is a consultant epidemiologist and is currently working with ENN as co-Principal Investigator for the Wasting Stunting Study. His areas of expertise include nutritional epidemiology, surveillance of communicable diseases, epidemiology of communicable diseases, spatial epidemiology, and survey design. Mark has undertaken work for the governments of the UK, USA, Ethiopia, Zambia, Malawi, Nigeria, and Sudan; the UK National Health Service and Public Health Laboratory Service; the Scottish Centre for Infection and Environmental Health; CDC (Atlanta); United Nations Organisations such as WHO, UNICEF, UNHCR, and WFP; ASEAN; and International NGOs such as Save the Children, CONCERN Worldwide, GAIN, GOAL, OXFAM, MSF, ACF/AAH, Merlin, FANTA, and VALID International. Mark has taught at several UK Universities (London (UCL, ICH, IoO, and LSHTM), Oxford, Liverpool, Manchester, and Glasgow) as well as at national schools of public health in Belgium, Estonia, Czech Republic, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the USA. Mark has authored several textbooks on epidemiology, statistics, and computing; a reference on food-borne disease; several computer programs for epidemiology and biostatistics; and has published over fifty articles in scientific and professional journals. In addition Mark has worked in many complex humanitarian emergencies over the past twenty-five years.
Tamsin WaltersTamsin specialises in public health nutrition and food security technical support, analysis and policy and strategy development, as well as providing broader strategic thinking and support to multi-sectoral humanitarian programming approaches. With experience in 29 African and Central and Southeast Asian countries over almost 20 years, her knowledge includes a comprehensive understanding of development policy within global, regional and community contexts.
Tamsin is the moderator for ENN’s online technical forum, en-net, and is currently undertaking work to develop this forum. She also works on other projects for ENN and is continuously engaged in improvement of the knowledge base for nutrition through involvement in global technical meetings and research publications.
In addition to her position with ENN Tamsin is a partner in NutritionWorks, and an Honorary Lecturer at Bristol University. Previous organisational affiliations include Concern Worldwide, Action Contre la Faim (ACF) and Action Against Hunger UK, Oxfam, CAFOD and Caritas Internationalis.
Operations Team
Project Coordinator Lead
Project Manager
Finance Manager
Human Resources Manager
Digital Communications Manager
Office Manager
Management Accountant - Grants
Finance Assistant
Project Officer
Project Officer
Human Resources Officer
Board of trustees
Dr Graham MacKay – Chair
Graham Mackay is Chief Operating Officer at the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre in London, UK.
Graham’s background originally was in natural sciences where he gained a PhD in environmental science before moving into international development, where he has worked on programmes in more than 15 countries around the world. He was Oxfam’s deputy humanitarian director before moving into organisational management. Prior to joining the Resource Centre he was Chief Operating Officer at Bond, the UK’s membership organisation for International Relief and Development organisations.
Marie McGrath – Trustee
In addition to her role as Technical Director for ENN, Marie McGrath is an (executive) Trustee on the Board and has held this position since 2006.
Dr Jane Cocking – Trustee
Dr Jane Cocking has 25 years’ experience in the humanitarian sector and has responded to multiple crises across the world. She worked for the ODA and Save the Children before spending almost 20 years with Oxfam GB. She was Chief Executive at The Mines Advisory Group from 2017 to 2020.
Harish Jani – Treasurer
Harish Jani is a Chartered Accountant and has held senior finance positions in a number of companies. In his last position Harish looked after the finances of Crystal Palace Football Club. He also has an MBA from Cass Business School.
Patrick Webb, Ph.D. – Trustee
Prof. Patrick Webb is a scholar-practitioner who has worked extensively on food security policy and practice, nutrition, agricultural development, humanitarian emergencies, and climate change interactions with food systems. Today, he is the Alexander McFarlane Professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition at Tufts University, and is co-lead of the Food, Water and Air (FWA) technical hub in STOP Spillover.
Patrick also serves as the Technical Adviser to the Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition (or GLOPAN), Adviser to the Food Systems for the Future initiative, and is vice-chair of the European Commission’s High Level Expert Group mandated to assess the needs and design of an International Platform for Food Systems Science – focused on climate change, food systems and human health.
Megan Howe – Trustee
Megan Howe is a communications specialist with experience working on humanitarian and development projects in multiple countries. She has also worked as a journalist and holds an MA in Journalism from City University London.
Currently, she works for a development consultancy as a Knowledge and Communications Specialist in global health.
Carol Morgan – Trustee
Carol has over 27 years of experience of working in senior management positions in fragile and conflict affected states, focusing on alleviating poverty. She is passionate about working with staff to reach their potential and about building effective relationships and partnerships to represent and promote humanitarian goals.
She currently holds the role of International Programmes Director for Concern Worldwide, where she oversees and manages Concern’s engagement in long-term development work, emergency response in 24 countries of operation as well as providing support to fundraising, communications and advocacy activities.
Previously she was Regional Director for Concern Worldwide for the Horn of Africa and the Central Africa Regions, where she was responsible for the management, implementation and expansion of programmes, as well as Country Director for Uganda, Ethiopia and Rwanda. Carol is also a registered Nurse and Midwife.
Sophie Healy-Thow – Trustee
Sophie is a youth activist who promotes Food Security and Gender Equality. She is a Lead Group Member of the Scaling Up Nutrition Movement (SUN), serves on the Board of the leading international charity ActionAid UK and is the co-chair of the UN Food Systems Summit Youth Liaison group. She is the co-founder of Act4Food Act4Change and the Global Youth Campaigns Coordinator for the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN).
Sophie is one of the 10 women leaders featured in the Disney book ‘Choose to Matter’ by ESPN presenter Julie Foudy which encourages young women to find the leader within and was recognised by TIME magazine as one of the most influential teens. More recently she was named by Food Tank as a Young Person Inspiring Change Across the Food System.