Dr Marianne Schoerling-Ajayi

As the international community is increasingly focusing on a broader health agenda, how can we ensure health policies are responding to local realities? This is one key question Marianne is pursuing to answer. As a social systems scientist and international consultant, she advocates for health literacy programs, which are informed by community-focused approaches. Marianne joined AEMRN at the beginning of 2019, and serves the network as International Engagement Manager, representing AEMRN at high-level policy events in Geneva, such as the Human Rights Council.  

Marianne started her career in management and policy consulting with engagements for the Austrian government and at consultancies such as Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, in Austria, Germany and Canada. In 2009, she pursued her interest in international development and worked for various organisations, including UNEP, the World YWCA and an NGO, focusing on policy research, community development, human rights advocacy and partnership development. 

Liaising between the grassroots and international level, sparked her passion for contributing to inclusive policy-making. In 2013, Marianne started her PhD research at Hagen University, Germany, focusing on the complexity of individual health-related decision processes and their implications for policy-makers. Her first book analyses social implications of the national public health governance system in Germany and examines the practice of self-medication (Dissertation University Hagen, 2018). In 2019, she published her second book, entitled "Complex decisions in contemporary society", focusing on the challenges of decision-making and presenting a theoretical competence-framework (Springer Research, 2019). 

Marianne is the co-founder of technology start-up and currently acts as head of advocacy of the Geneva Macro Lab, a grassroots movement leveraging Lake Leman's collective intelligence as a do tank towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.