Gillian McKay

Gillian is Head of the Humanitarian What Works Centre at Elrha, where she leads a global initiative to identify, test, and scale solutions to longstanding challenges in humanitarian action in collaboration with the International Rescue Committee.

With a background as a registered nurse and scientist, she has worked extensively in humanitarian response, including in DRC, Sierra Leone and Türkiye. Her work focuses on strengthening evidence use in humanitarian public health, with particular interests in infectious disease outbreaks, sexual and reproductive health and rights, and non-communicable diseases.

Gillian holds a DrPH from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and is particularly interested in how social and behavioural science can be embedded in humanitarian response to drive more effective and equitable outcomes.