The Climate Centre’s health work focuses on adapting humanitarian health programmes to the growing risks of climate change. It supports National Societies and partners in understanding how climate impacts affect health, including mental health, livelihoods, and systems such as water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH). Through research and assessments—particularly in regions like Africa and Asia-Pacific—it identifies trends, gaps, and future risks. The aim is to strengthen preparedness, improve decision-making, and build more climate-resilient health systems and responses.
Programme manager
Meghan Bailey
Head of Social Protection & Head of Health
Meghan is Head of Health and Social Protection. They lead the portfolios on the use of social protection systems for managing climate risks, as well as research and programming on climate induced impacts on health. Meghan holds a PhD on climate adaptation from the University of Oxford.
Team members
Sayanti Sengupta
Sayanti is a social protection expert, specialising on climate change and leads projects on embedding climate risks into social protection systems across Pacific, South Asia and African countries. She also leads Climate Centre’s work in chairing the USP2030 working group on social protection and climate change, driving strategic policy engagement and advocacy at the international level.
Martha Vogel
Martha is a Climate and Health Technical Adviser with a PhD from ETH Zurich university, specializing in climate extremes, in particular drought and heatwaves. At UNESCO she gained experience in policy development, knowledge transfer and climate impacts in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Tilly Alcayna
Tilly is the Senior Technical Adviser for Health and Climate. She has over twelve years’ research and operational experience in climate change adaptation for health, epidemiology, and disaster preparedness. She is currently completing a PhD focus on anticipatory action for epidemics.
Mauricio Santos Vega
Mauricio is a Technical Adviser for Health and Climate, bringing with him more than a decade of research experience in assessing the effects of climate on health, quantitative epidemiology, and epidemic preparedness. His academic background includes a PhD. in the ecology and evolution of infectious diseases.