Dr. Blakstad formerly worked as a global health professional with multidisciplinary expertise in health, nutrition, and agriculture. For the past 8 years, she has worked on funding, implementing, and evaluating human capital programs across East Africa and Southeast Asia. At The Rockefeller Foundation, she manages the Food Initiative’s diet quality portfolio and several grants promoting biodiversity, climate-resilient agriculture, and public procurement for social safety nets. In her previous role at the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, she managed a portfolio of health systems strengthening grants and provided technical assistance on cross-disciplinary development assistance, nutrition, non-communicable disease, and climate change.
Dr. Blakstad holds a BSc in Nutritional Sciences from Cornell University, a MSc in Global Health from Harvard School of Public Health, and a PhD in Population Health Sciences from Harvard University.