Core Team

Meg Wirth

Meg Wirth is the founder of Maternova and a S.E.VEN fellow and a Cartier Women's Initiative finalist. An innovator at heart, over the last several years she co-developed the strategy for the first global health social venture capital fund with a focus on women's health in low-income countries. Meg has also led the business plan development for a next-generation medical device company with an application in global health. She has worked on women's health throughout her career in areas as diverse as starting a home visiting program for teen mothers in Appalachia to monitoring and evaluating a major Safe Motherhood initiative--funded by USAID and implemented by John Snow International's Mothercare project-- in Jakarta and South Kalimantan, Indonesia. Meg has also worked as a member of the Rockefeller Foundation’s Health Equity team and co-edited a major volume called Challenging Inequities in Health: From Ethics to Action. She was a co-author of the UN Millennium Project’s final report on child and maternal health. She has a BA from Harvard University and an MPA in international development from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School.

Allyson E. Cote

Allyson E. Cote is Maternova's VP of Business Development. With over fifteen years in the development field, her award winning expertise lies in high level client acquisition, strategic and channel partnership development, account management, and marketing. Prior to Maternova, Allyson acted as a founding Vice President team member of Shape Up, Inc. as well as acting as COO for Alessandra Gold, Inc. She holds an undergraduate degree in Sociology from the University of Massachusetts, and is currently working towards an MBA in Advocacy & Policy.

Emily Ellison Fallon

Emily Ellison Fallon has worked as part of the Maternova team working on Project Management since 2010. Emily's undergraduate thesis at Brown was on social globalization and its impact on HIV/AIDS advocacy in Brazil and Mozambique. She is interested in how powerful the combination of health advocates and the Internet can be in addressing the international institutions that dictate policies around health care spending globally. A particular area of interest of Emily's is in cultural competency in the introduction of health related technologies/practices. Emily is also a DONA International Trained Doula, and volunteers at the Adolescent Reproductive Health Services clinic at Brigham and Women's Hospital, providing doula services for underage mothers.

Karin Kroh

Karin Kroh brings 15 years experience in financial management, accounting, bookkeeping, orders, fulfillment and project management to Maternova and keeps all of our operations in ship shape. She has worked with startups and seen them through all stages of growth but here work with large corporations brings us a diverse set of perspectives on our financial strategy.

Jessa Handang

Jessa Handang is an administrative assistant for Maternova. She is a Jill of all trades contributing to the efficiency of our operation.

Lizi Jones

Lizi is a recent graduate of Northwestern University. She was until recently a part-time wrangler and part-timer researcher and blogger for Maternova!

Cinta Burgos, Quality and Regulatory

Cinta Burgos has been involved in the Biotech and Medical Device industry for over 18 years; working in various positions in research engineering, validation engineering, and Quality Assurance in large companies as well as small start-ups. Prior to entering the industry she was a microbiology laboratory researcher. Ms. Burgos is an independent QA consultant for several biotech and medical device companies, supporting GLP and GCP laboratories and studies; responsible for developing and maintaining Quality Systems from Design Control/Product Development to cGMP manufacturing; conducting ISO, GMP, and GCP audits, managing complaint, risk, and corrective action systems, training, due diligence, and regulatory submission support. She has audited and worked in small start-ups as well as in large, global companies.

Prior to entering the biotech industry Cinta worked as a micro and cell biology research assistant at UCSD Medical Center, as well as an electronics engineer assistant with secret security clearance at the Naval Research Center. Some products Cinta has helped support or bring to market are pacemakers, stents, oxygenators, filled vial automatic systems, blood substitutes, biosimilars, vena cava filters, neuro shunts and clips, monoclonal antibodies, cell separation, embolotherapy, heart monitoring equipment, IVD, combination devices, direct to consumer cosmetic electronic and software controlled systems.
Specialties

Validations, FMEA, Risk Management, Quality Systems and Documentation, Complaints, Design Control, Training, Internal, Supplier, and Clinical Audits

Fluent in English and Spanish.

Prior Team Members

Rachel Thakore

A Brown University senior who is keeping the Maternova Innovation Index current and up to date!

Smitha Gudapakkam

Smitha brings a B.A. and Masters in Engineering to her Babson MBA training. She is passionate about metrics and measurement for social impact and worked with Maternova to capture all of the health, social and economic impact generated when a mother or infant has a safe birth.

Shipra Sirhari

An experienced reproductive health specialist, Shipra was the very first Maternova consultant putting together the earliest version of the Innovation Index through painstaking research.

Kirstin Krussell

Kirstin worked with Maternova as a blogger and researcher right after finishing her degree
at Brown University. She went on to work in maternal health last time we checked!

Elizabeth Adler

Elizabeth was one of the first Brown students to work with Maternova--she contributed extensively to the early

Lara Yuan

Lara was a researcher extraordinaire, helping to put together the market story by parsing through very fragmented and hard to find data.

Aya Maruyama

Aya started working with us while she was an undergraduate at RISD in industrial design. She designed the original obstetric pak as well as many of the educational materials and flash cards that Maternova distributes.

Adaobi Okafur

Adaobi is a business student at Catholic University and she has a specific interest in emergency services in her home country of Nigeria.

Tristin O'Hara

Tristin is an intern from the Met School, the only high school in the country to have an entrepreneurship program.

Prior Partners

The Association of Reproductive Health Professionals

The Association of Reproductive Health Professionals (ARHP) and Maternova were partnered as co-recipients of a Macarthur Foundation grant to work on mapping obstetric facilities in Mexico from 2010-2011.

Promail, Etc

is a fulfillment center in Providence, RI. This social enterprise employs people with specific health challenges who are in need of employment.

Comite Promotor por una Maternidad sin Riesgos (CPMSR), Mexico

The Safe Motherhood Committee in Mexico was partnered with Maternova and ARHP to working together to build a user-friendly map of obstetric facilities--including their quality of care ratings.

Concern Worldwide Innovations:

Maternova worked with Concern Worldwide in 2011 on an initiative to pursue innovations for maternal and newborn health in Sierra Leone, Malawi and Orissa state in India.