About Us

What does Ata mean?

  In Turkish, Ata means forefather.  Ata Health recognizes that achieving population health involves systems- level change to the antecedents to health.  This means working to optimize health systems the drive public health and clinical service delivery, and addressing systematic drivers of health, such as social determinants of health, or animal and environmental health threats (i.e. One Health).

Ata Health Strategies was created in 2019 by its Principal, Dr. Alexandra Zuber, who leads all project-based teams. Through a career spanning nearly two decades, Dr. Zuber is recognized as a global expert in health workforce development and health systems strengthening, and has served in key leadership positions throughout the federal government, where she repeatedly designed, piloted, and scaled innovative public health programs that resulted in significant impacts in the U.S. and around the world.  

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In a ten year career at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, under the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), Dr. Zuber served as the agency’s lead for human resources for health. She created and led a ten-person team and secured over $20 million in funding for programs advancing human resource information systems, nursing regulation and policy, field epidemiology training programs, and national public health institutes (NPHIs).   She led the design of the first Project ECHO virtual community of practice under PEPFAR, in partnership with University of New Mexico, a model that is now mainstreamed across the global initiative.  And she partnered with World Health Organization (WHO) to put forward the first Minimum Data Set for Health Workforce Registry, a key input to the current National Health Workforce Accounts.  

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For seven years, Dr. Zuber Co-chaired the PEPFAR interagency Human Resources for Health (HRH) Working Group, where she guided PEPFAR investments in over 30 countries and designed and led the strategy to achieve the Congressional target to produce 140,000 new health workers globally.  In 2012, Dr. Zuber was appointed to a three person team responsible for design and launch of the $160 million Saving Mothers, Giving Life initiative, a signature program of the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, which reduced maternal mortality by 27% in program districts in 2 countries.

With Ata Health, Dr. Zuber has continued this leadership and focus.  She is one of four 'key personnel' leading the $85 million USAID One Health Workforce- Next Generation Initiative, where she is responsible for guiding the five year program to support two regional training networks to build organizational sustainablity and become direct USAID funding recipients.  She continues to support the design and evaluation of virtual communities of practice, such as through the CDC Leadership and Management ECHO and the Long Covid and other Fatiguing Illlness Recovery Program.  And she leads important research and analysis to inform the development of CDC guidance for NPHIs, MOH strategic planning for human resources for health (HRH), and USG planning for HRH programs.

Dr. Zuber has lived and worked in over 20 countries, and holds a Master in Public Policy from Harvard University - Kennedy School of Government and a Doctorate of Public Health in Public Health Leadership from the University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill.  

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