Maureen Okam Achebe, MD, the Assistant Director for Hematology Integration at the NCDI Poverty Network, is deeply involved in the care of people with sickle cell disease in the United States and internationally.

Dr. Achebe is the Clinical Director of Hematology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Clinical Director of Hematology Services at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. In these roles, she devises strategies for clinical operations improvements and oversees all classical hematology patient care at both institutions. Also at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, she directs the Comprehensive Sickle Cell Disease Center, which delivers state-of-the-art care to adults with sickle cell disease.

She is the co-chair of the data subcommittee of the American Society of Hematology’s Consortium on Newborn Screening in Africa (CONSA), which seeks to demonstrate the benefits of screening and early intervention for sickle cell disease underway in seven sub-Saharan African countries (Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia). She has represented the American Society of Hematology and CONSA at the 2019 World Health Assembly side meeting in Geneva and at WHO AFRO regional meetings in Brazzaville, Congo, to advance support for the care of people living with sickle cell disease worldwide.

Dr. Achebe serves as a commissioner on the Lancet Non-Communicable Disease and Injuries (NCDI) Nigeria Poverty Commission. As the Commission’s sickle cell disease expert, she guides the identification and prioritization of policies, interventions, and integrated delivery platforms to address and reduce the country’s sickle cell disease burden. She was an investigator in the development of two sickle cell disease drugs recently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. She continues to be actively involved in clinical trials and translational research at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

She is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. She is also a Co-Director of the Harvard–MIT Health Sciences and Technology ICM: Hematology Clinic for Harvard Medical School students.

A graduate of the University of Port Harcourt Medical School, Dr. Achebe was specialty trained in hematology and medical oncology at the Yale School of Medicine. She also holds a master’s degree in public health from the Harvard T.H Chan School of Public Health.