Staff Profile: Alimou Barry

When you ask Alimou Mamadou Barry what he studied in school, make sure you have a few minutes to listen. After receiving a doctorate in pharmacy and biology, Barry got a master’s degree in chemistry and bio-chemistry of natural substances and then another in public health. And in the time between those degrees, he managed to receive certifications in bacteriology, virology and applied leprosy along with two diplomas from the Pasteur Institute in Paris (tropical microbiology, and human and animal applied epidemiology). 

“I started school in 1965, and since then, I’ve just never given up,” Barry said with a smile. 

Barry, originally from Guinea, joined MEASURE Evaluation in July 2008, but he didn’t begin living and working in Chapel Hill until September 2009. He is looking forward to putting his extensive public health experience to use in his new position as the technical focal person for projects in Cote d’Ivoire. Barry is the activity lead for both the Monitoring and Evaluation and for the Routine Health Information courses at CESAG, Senegal, and he represents MEASURE Evaluation at the UNAIDS technical working group for capacity building in West and Central Africa. He is also coordinating Health Metric Networks activities in Francophone Africa.

“As a health professional, I gain something by working with MEASURE Evaluation because of its outstanding work, and I am also in a position to help,” he said. 

While Barry started out as pharmacist and biologist, he realized that he wanted to work in public health while he was taking his first statistics class at the Pasteur Institute.

“I was impressed by the way things were approached, and I saw that you don’t always need to be really high-tech in order to help people to improve their lives. From that point, I did everything I could to get training in public health,” he recounted.

After his residency in pharmacy, he was hired in 1987 as assistant professor at the School of Medicine and Pharmacy, University Cheikh Anta Diop, Senegal. Barry pursued his training by supplementing his formal education with public health work in women’s health issues in Guinea, and then as Deputy Coordinator of the Canadian project to combat STDs/AIDS in Guinea, as Public Health Specialist at USAID mission in Guinea and Senior Technical Advisor of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s HIV Project in Mali. 

He views his new location at the MEASURE Evaluation office in Chapel Hill as a major benefit to foster linkages between the project arenas and improve his work in general and particularly in Africa.

“Now, I have more interaction with people here. When you are talking face to face, there are more opportunities to address more things and to get better results,” he said.

And, of course, he couldn’t forget another notable perk of working in a university town.

“I will probably find it difficult not to take some classes at UNC,” Barry admitted with a chuckle.