Makyba Charles-Ayinde
Latin America and Caribbean Regional Lead, USA Hub
Makyba Charles-Ayinde serves as the Latin America and Caribbean Lead and is focused on expansion, reinforcement, and deepening of strategic relationships among sustainability, informed decision support, and transformative action organizations in the Global South with the offices and communities of Future Earth. As such, she is particularly focused on leading such activities in the region of Latin America and the Caribbean and being both a conduit and advocate to the Global Future Earth administration for that region. She came to Future Earth after efforts at the National Institutes of Health where she supported exceptionally creative scientists pursuing highly innovative research with the potential for broad impact in biomedical, behavioral, or social sciences and the United States Department of State where she worked as their lead Covid-19 officer within the Office of International Health and Biodefense. Makyba has previously worked with Future Earth while as an AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow at the National Science Foundation. She worked in the Geosciences directorate on various international and integrative activities facilitating transdisciplinary global change research. Her work encompassed various programs within the Belmont Forum, Future Earth, Sustainability Research and Innovation, and Global Sustainability Scholars initiatives. Makyba is a public health scientist by training, with expertise in environmental and global health. She assessed seafood safety following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and identified highly vulnerable subpopulations to environmental disasters in the Gulf region. She also worked as a National Academies of Sciences fellow, where she analyzed programs responding to the Zika disease outbreak following hurricane Irma and evaluated novel techniques for mosquito control due to climate change within the State of Florida. Makyba is originally from the Caribbean and is extremely passionate about moving the needle on initiatives relative to sustainability science and its connectivity to public health, as well as science diplomacy within the Global South.