Laurel Schmitt is an international development professional with experience working in low- and middle-income countries on health and education system strengthening. She is particularly interested in the intersection of health and education policy, with a focus on Sub-Saharan Africa.
As a senior program officer at Results for Development, Ms. Schmitt works across the organization’s education, adaptive learning and health portfolios. She works on a range of projects focused on supporting country-driven processes for the selection, rapid testing and purposeful scale-up of health systems strengthening interventions. She also facilitates the Project Literacy community of practice, convening over 100 in-country literacy practitioners to collaboratively tackle complex challenges in the literacy space. Ms. Schmitt first started this work as an intern with R4D where she provided research and analytical support to the Tusome Pamoja rapid feedback study in Tanzania.
Prior to joining R4D, Ms. Schmitt was a Peace Corps volunteer in Mozambique, where she worked closely with PEPFAR’s DREAMS Initiative and local stakeholders to strengthen the provision of adolescent reproductive health services and education.
Ms. Schmitt holds a master’s degree in international education policy from Harvard University and a BA in international affairs from the George Washington University. She speaks English, Portuguese and Arabic.
