I’m an Epidemiologist

WHO presentation on validation of the elimination of MTCT (mother-to-child transmission) .

A Conversation with Chika Hayashi ‘91

By Anne Papantonio parent of alumni, former Nishimachi Development Office Staff

In the words of Nishimachi founder Tané Matsukata, “Our ultimate goal is that every Nishimachi student learn to live harmoniously in, and contribute to, world society.” Like so many Nishimachi alumni, Chika Hayashi, class of 1991, embodies that vision.

By way of background, Chika graduated from Nishimachi in 1991 and went on to ASIJ for high school. She did a bachelor’s, and then a master’s, degree in global disease epidemiology and control at Johns Hopkins University. After working in labs as a student, her first office job was with the World Bank in Washington, D.C. From there she joined the World Health Organization (WHO) for three years in Geneva, where she analyzed the cost effectiveness of interventions to prevent and treat HIV and explored how nutrition could improve maternal and child health outcomes. A year in East Timor with UNICEF followed. She returned to Geneva in 2004 to work again with the WHO, where she monitored and evaluated the global HIV response until 2017. She then moved to New York and now works for UNICEF, where she leads the team that collects, monitors, and analyzes data on nutrition around the world.

Although she is currently working from home, like much of the world, she finds there is little down time in a day. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it is very much all hands on deck for UNICEF, and much of her day is now spent on the disease, trying to quantify the impact it will have on the lives of children and women. Hundreds of millions of children are already malnourished, and even more may be pushed over the edge. Better data can support governments, UNICEF offices, and emergency operations around the world.

The Nishimachi Years

We talked about Chika’s years at Nishimachi, how they influenced her decision to pursue a career in social action and how they put her on the trajectory to where she is today.

Chika was born in Tokyo, her father Japanese, her mother Taiwanese. Many of her mother’s friends were non-Japanese, whose children went to international schools, and it seemed natural to send Chika and her sister to Nishimachi.

She remembers the words of the school song,

Scaling up HIV testing in Kenya in 2004 while with the WHO.