Meet Our Newest Board Members
Written by Marian Starkey | Published: June 8, 2026
Over the past year, six new members have joined the Population Connection Board of Directors. Get to know them a bit below!
We are fortunate to have 18 experts in various fields leading Population Connection at the highest level. These accomplished professionals work in health care, academia, law, non-profit leadership, and more. They have all volunteered their time to this organization because they believe in our mission to stabilize population at a sustainable level, through improved access to voluntary family planning education and services.
We look forward to updating the group photo below with a new one at this year’s annual meeting in June!
Harriet Birungi, PhD
Harriet was vice president of international programs at Population Council until she left the organization after more than two decades, in 2024. Based in Nairobi, Harriet provided leadership and support across Population Council’s 13 international offices and its affiliated organizations in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East.
Prior to that position, Harriet served as country director of Population Council’s Kenya office. Among her many contributions, she led the first-ever research on the sexual and reproductive health and rights of adolescents who were perinatally infected with HIV, conducted research on early and unintended pregnancy in the education sector, and served as the research director for the groundbreaking STEP UP Research Program Consortium to strengthen health systems to reduce unmet need for family planning and safe abortion services.
Harriet received her PhD in medical anthropology from the University of Copenhagen, her MA in development studies from the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague, Netherlands, and her BA in sociology and social administration from Makerere University in her home country of Uganda.
Céline Delacroix, PhD
Céline is an adjunct professor at the University of Ottawa’s School of Health Sciences. Her research specialties include climate change, environmental communication, and population health.
She is also a senior fellow at Population Institute and director of its FP/Earth program. FP/Earth analyzes the linkages between family planning, population size, and environmental sustainability and how they are perceived and how they could be harnessed to strengthen reproductive rights and improve environmental sustainability.
Céline has been the executive director of several human rights and environmental NGOs, including the Conservation Council of New Brunswick and Ethiopiaid Canada.
Céline has a PhD in population health from the University of Ottawa, an MS in environmental management from the Free University of Brussels, and a Bachelor of Laws from Cardiff University in Wales.
She is currently conducting independent research funded by Population Connection and Population Institute that will analyze the connections between population and environmental challenges.
Dianne Dillon-Ridgley
Currently the CEO of the Women’s Network for a Sustainable Future, Dianne has been a leader in sustainability and conservation for over four decades.
She has served on nearly a dozen boards, including those of the Center for International Environmental Law, the National Wildlife Federation, the World Parliament of Religions, and the River Network. Dianne returns to the Population Connection board after having previously served four times as chair.
Appointed by three US presidents, she has joined 23 US delegations at the UN and at other global meetings. For over a decade, Dianne represented World YWCA (based in Geneva) at the UN headquarters in New York, chairing the UN Millennium DPI/NGO Summit in 2000, where the Millennium Development Goals were introduced.
Dianne helped found 100Grannies, an effort to “educate, advocate, and agitate for renewable energy, pure water, clean air, and a healthy environment for future generations,” and Plains Justice, an environmental law center for the Great Plains region.
Robert Engelman, MS
Bob began his career as a newspaper reporter, working for the Associated Press, Kansas City Times, Rocky Mountain News, and Scripps Howard News Service.
In 1992, he left journalism and founded a research program on population and the environment at Population Action International (PAI), where he later became vice president for research. In 1997, he was among the founders of the Center for a New American Dream and served until 2007 as chair of its board of directors. In 2000 and again in 2002 and 2003, Bob served on the faculty of Yale University as a visiting lecturer on population and the environment. He was vice president of the Worldwatch Institute from 2007–2011 and president from 2011–2014. Since 2018, he has served as a senior fellow at Population Institute.
Bob received his BA from the University of Chicago and his MS from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, which in 1976 awarded him a Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship.
His book Intending Eden: Parenting, Population, and the Planet, an update of an earlier work, will be published in spring 2026.
Jeffrey Jordan, MPA
Jeff provided strategic leadership and vision for Population Reference Bureau (PRB) as president and CEO. He retired from that position in 2024, after 10 years, and after a 35-year career in international development.
Prior to PRB, Jeff was the senior vice president for international programs at the Catholic Medical Mission Board, where he provided oversight of all international programs in HIV/AIDS, maternal and child health, neglected and tropical diseases, and gender.
His demographic career began at Population Resource Center and continued at Futures Group/Constella Futures. At Futures, he first served as an analyst and program manager in population, family planning/reproductive health, and HIV/AIDS, before becoming vice president of program development and COO.
He served for nearly a decade as the co-chair of the USAID Interagency Gender Working Group.
Jeff received his MPA from Princeton University and his BA in economics from Davidson College.
Dara Purvis, JD
Dara is a scholar of family law, sexual orientation and gender identity, feminist legal theory, and masculinities. Her recent work focuses on the constitutional rights of transgender children. She has been published in several prominent law reviews and in The New York Times.
Prior to her current position as a professor at the Temple University Beasley School of Law, Dara was a professor at Penn State Law and a visiting assistant professor at the University of Illinois College of Law. She clerked for The Hon. Gerard E. Lynch, US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and The Hon. Raymond C. Fisher, US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Dara has a JD from Yale Law School, where she served as the editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal. She has an MPhil from Cambridge University and a BA from the University of Southern California.
Dara has previously served on the Population Connection board and is now its vice chair. She also currently sits on the board of Population Connection Action Fund. She first became involved with Population Connection as a part-time membership assistant in the summer of 2004, before beginning law school.
Email Marian at mstarkey@populationconnection.org