Dr. Herminia Palacio

Joined the Guttmacher Institute as President and CEO in August 2019. In this role, Dr. Palacio guides the Institute in fulfilling its mission to advance sexual and reproductive health and rights in the United States and globally. She works to create a strong organizational culture, provide leadership and inspiration for the Guttmacher staff, and shape the Institute’s long-term vision to ensure the continued impact of its work. (Learn more about Dr. Palacio’s vision for Guttmacher in The Lancet’s November 2019 profile.)

Prior to joining the Guttmacher Institute, Dr. Palacio served as Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services for the City of New York. In this role, she was in charge of coordinating transformation efforts across the city’s public health and health care system, expanding access to social services and ensuring that agencies serving the city’s most vulnerable populations are run compassionately, equitably and effectively. She oversaw 11 city agencies and mayoral offices, which were entrusted with protecting the health and well-being of all New Yorkers and which had a combined budget of $24 billion—approximately a quarter of the city’s budget.

Dr. Palacio brings more than 25 years of experience across a broad range of sectors, including academic and clinical medicine, governmental public health and philanthropy. She previously served as Director of Advancing Change Leadership at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), where she was responsible for developing and implementing new health leadership programs. Prior to joining RWJF, she served for 10 years as Executive Director of Harris County Public Health and Environmental Services. In this role, Dr. Palacio oversaw the provision of a range of public health services for the third most populous U.S. county, including select services for the city of Houston and full public health services for the two million residents living outside of Houston.

Dr. Palacio is a crisis management expert who was charged with serving as Medical Branch Director for the Hurricane Katrina Houston/Harris County Reliant Park/Astrodome megashelter operation in 2005. In this role, Dr. Palacio was responsible for standing up and overseeing the public health and health care delivery emergency response operations for 27,000 evacuees from the New Orleans area. Her work during Hurricane Katrina earned her the Excellence in Health Administration Award from the American Public Health Association in 2007. Dr. Palacio also addressed a variety of public health challenges as a Special Policy Advisor to the Director for the San Francisco Department of Public Health. Throughout a storied career, Palacio has demonstrated strong dedication to public health and a clear ability to respond with innovative solutions that influence national policy.

In addition to her policy work, Dr. Palacio practiced clinical medicine for nearly 20 years, including almost 15 years at San Francisco General Hospital during the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. She has also held a number of full-time or adjunct academic appointments, including at the University of Texas School of Public Health, Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine.

Dr. Palacio received her medical degree from Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, a master of public health from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health and a BA in biology from Barnard College at Columbia University. She has published numerous articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

Dr. Palacio has lent her public health expertise to a number of regional and national organizations and committees, including the Harris County Healthcare Alliance, as President of the Texas Association of Local Health Officials; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Board of Scientific Counselors for the Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response; and the CDC Advisory Committee to the Director. In 2011, she was appointed by President Obama as a member of the Advisory Group on Prevention, Health Promotion, and Integrative and Public Health.

Jonathan Wittenberg

Joined the Guttmacher Institute in 2005. As Executive Vice President, Mr. Wittenberg serves as a key advisor to the CEO, plays a leadership role in aligning the Institute’s strategy and operations, and helps to ensure cross-divisional collaboration and integration. Prior to becoming Executive Vice President in 2019, Mr. Wittenberg led the Institute’s fundraising efforts, first as Director of Development (2007–2013) and then as Vice President for Development (2013–2019). In this capacity, he oversaw a period of major growth in the organization’s funding from private foundations, government agencies and individual donors. From 2018 to 2019, Mr. Wittenberg served as interim CEO.

Prior to joining Guttmacher, he was the Program Associate for International Health Policy at the Commonwealth Fund, where he conducted policy analysis and helped support the Fund’s grantees. In 2003, Mr. Wittenberg worked as a public policy intern for Physicians for Reproductive Health (then known as Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health). He received a BS in health sciences from James Madison University and an MPH from the Yale School of Public Health. He is a proud member of the board of directors of the Women’s Medical Fund, a Philadelphia-based abortion fund.

Susheela Singh

is Distinguished Scholar and Vice President for Global Science and Policy Integration at the Guttmacher Institute. She joined the Institute in 1985 and was Vice President for International Research before transitioning in 2020 to her current role. Her research addresses a range of topics, including abortion and unintended pregnancy; abortion-related morbidity; the costs and benefits of providing sexual and reproductive health services; maternal health; contraceptive use; and adolescent sexual and reproductive health. During her career, Dr. Singh has written and coauthored numerous monographs, journal articles and other publications. She was a member of the Guttmacher-Lancet Commission on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights and a coauthor of its report. She works closely with Guttmacher’s CEO and Executive Vice President to increase the prominence of Guttmacher’s global work. She also plays a key leadership role in integrating the Institute’s global work across its three programmatic areas—policy, research and communications—and provides guidance to the Institute’s new Global Policy Program.

Maureen Burnley

Joined the Guttmacher Institute in 2015 as the Vice President for Finance & Administration. Before coming to Guttmacher, she served as the Director of Finance and Administration at Family Care International, and before that at Doctors Without Borders/ Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), where she served on the committee that negotiated MSF’s four-year, $4 billion agreement to allocate financial resources worldwide. Prior to joining MSF, she was Executive Vice President for Finance and Operations at the General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church, where she oversaw the establishment of the Archbishop Desmond Tutu Education Center, and before that she served as Chief Operating Officer for Family Justice, Inc. Ms. Burnley was also Associate Dean at the New School’s Milano Graduate School of Management and Urban Policy, where her expansion strategy increased new student enrollment by nearly 40%. Earlier in her career, she held senior management and research positions in several organizations dedicated to civil rights and social justice, including the NYC Gay and Lesbian Anti­Violence Project and the United Negro College Fund.

Ms. Burnley has served on the boards of the Lower East Side Harm Reduction Center, the Empire State Pride Agenda, and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. A graduate of Bryn Mawr College with a BA in anthropology, Ms. Burnley also holds an MBA from the Zicklin School of Business at Baruch College and a master’s degree in rhetoric and semantics from Ohio State University.

Heather Boonstra

Is Vice President for Public Policy at the Guttmacher Institute. She serves on the Institute’s Executive Leadership Team, where she plays a key role in developing Institute-wide strategic and programmatic priorities. She provides broad oversight and day-to-day management of Guttmacher’s Policy Division, and leads our policy team to maximize the impact of Guttmacher’s research and policy analysis at the state, federal and global levels.

For five years, Ms. Boonstra held the position of Director of Public Policy; she oversaw the Institute’s advocacy efforts, equipping advocates, opinion leaders and decision makers with timely evidence and incisive policy analysis. Ms. Boonstra joined the Institute in 1999 as a Senior Public Policy Associate. In this role, she represented Guttmacher in advocacy and outreach activities with Congress, government agencies, coalition partners and other organizations. She authored numerous policy analyses on issues such as insurance coverage for abortion under Medicaid, the sexual health needs of adolescents in low- and middle-income countries, and the harms of abstinence-only-until-marriage programs. She graduated summa cum laude from the University of Oregon and holds an MA in religion from Yale University, where she studied social and medical ethics and movement building.

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