Robbyn Lewis Named Fellow for Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance
January 7, 2019
Contact: Office of Government and Public Affairs
Phone: 410.837.5739
The Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance has announced that Robbyn Lewis will be joining the team as a Civic Data and Engagement Fellow. In this role, she will assist with BNIA's increasing role in community-based training on open data for a broad range of networks operating in Baltimore's many neighborhoods. In addition to working with neighborhoods, she will focus on arts and culture-related projects, such as the award-winning GEOLOOM Co>Map. BNIA is part of the University of Baltimore's Jacob France Institute, where it works to strengthen city neighborhoods by providing meaningful, accurate, and open data at the community level.
Lewis serves as a state delegate in Maryland’s 46th District. She is an international health professional, sustainability advocate and community leader, and lives in Baltimore's Patterson Park. She serves on multiple community-based and non-profit boards and commissions, such as the Baltimore City Sustainability Commission, Bikemore, the Southeast Community Development Corporation and the Creative Alliance.
Before becoming delegate, Lewis devoted more than 15 years working around the world on health programs. During 10 years of service as a Johns Hopkins University employee, Lewis's work included conducting clinical and operations research, scaling up health innovations and strengthening health policies in Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean. She also worked for several years at other international organizations, including the World Bank and Family Health International/FHI360. She has lived and worked in a dozen countries, including Niger, Haiti, Malawi, Thailand, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Mongolia, South Africa, Nigeria, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Lewis began her international health career as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Niger, where she worked in a remote maternal and child health clinic. She has applied the grassroots health activism skills she learned in the Peace Corps to improve everyday quality of life in her Baltimore neighborhood; for example, by creating and leading large-scale tree plantings, expansion of energy conservation, recycling and placemaking.
Lewis also served as special assistant at the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange, where she helped to expand access to affordable, quality health insurance coverage to more than a million Marylanders.
Fluent in French, and skilled in Mandarin, Zarma and Haitian Creole, Lewis holds a Master of Public Health in International Health degree from Columbia University and a Bachelor in Anthropology degree from the University of Chicago.