Dr Maria Augusta Carrasco

Maria Augusta Carrasco is a behavioural scientist with experience designing, implementing  and evaluating capacity building and public health programs. Originally from Ecuador, Ms Carrasco has managed large public health projects in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America and has been a behavioural sciences consultant for the World Bank, UNFPA and Pact. She currently works at the United States Agency for Universal Development (USAID) where she leads the agency’s work with the High Impact Practices in Family Planning partnership and works on the Research for Scalable Solutions project providing implementation and behavioural sciences technical support. She is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the Department of Health Behavior and Society in the United States, where she teaches a graduate course focusing on Latino Health. In her role at USAID's Office of HIV/AIDS, Ms Carrasco used her behavioral sciences expertise to enhance uptake of voluntary medical male circumcision services in Sub-Saharan Africa and to improve HIV prevention services in Malawi. She has authored numerous peer reviewed publications focusing on the application of behavioral insights to strengthen public health programs.