Kristen Stolka

Kristen Stolka is a research public health analyst at RTI. She has 18 years of experience supporting and leading global public health initiatives as a researcher and program manager spanning numerous countries, with an emphasis on emerging and infectious diseases (HIV/AIDS, Ebola, Zika, COVID-19), global health security, and maternal, reproductive, and child health. She has led and coordinated protocol planning, implementation, and data management and monitoring of multisite, international research studies; managed complex technical and administrative operations of national disease surveillance strengthening programs; and designed and implemented monitoring and evaluation plans.

Ms. Stolka joined RTI in 2010. Her research experience includes an assessment of the surveillance system for priority zoonotic diseases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), a case-control study of risk factors for Kaposi’s sarcoma in Cameroon, and an analysis of antiretroviral therapy–naïve HIV patients lost-to-care in Central African HIV clinics. She currently manages a multicomponent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)-funded Global Health Security project in the DRC that aims to strengthen the surveillance system for epidemic-prone diseases at all levels of the health system, including piloting electronic data collection and enhanced data analysis, and improving risk communication and community engagement around COVID-19 and vaccine-preventable diseases.