Oluwatosin H. Olateju: Commissioner/Co-Chair, Maryland Commission on Public Health, US

Oluwatosin H. Olateju, DrPH, MSN, BSN serves as an Assistant Professor of Nursing at Coppin State University. Olateju is a grassroots community/public/global health nurse leader who has worked in Maryland local health departments implementing, managing, and evaluating several health programmes focusing on infectious disease prevention and control, family health, and sexual and reproductive health for diverse populations. She spent the first five years of her career as a clinical nurse specialising in neurology/neurosurgery and psychiatry before finding her calling in public health.

Olateju is also the founder of Food and Care for All Inc., a non-profit organisation that promotes food security and equitable health services for underserved populations in Maryland, U.S., and Sub-Saharan Africa. She is passionate about research and health policy. Between 2018 and 2019, Olateju led a team to advocate for a Maryland legislation that allows minors to give consent for HIV prevention treatments. The law was successfully passed in 2019.

She continues to advocate for equitable healthcare policies and is currently the Co-Chair of the Advocacy Committee at the Maryland Public Health Association (MdPHA).

Oluwatosin obtained a Bachelor of Science in Nursing and a Master of Science in Community & Public Health Nursing from the University of Maryland, Baltimore. She also received a Doctor of Public Health degree from Morgan State University, School of Community Health and Policy, specialising in Health Policy and Management.

Oluwatosin is an alumnus of the Paul Ambrose Scholarship Programme completed in 2015 and has won numerous honors, including recognition by the University of Maryland School of Nursing as “an accomplished alumnus in public health” (2017, 2022), the Top Nurses 2020 Award by Baltimore Magazine for Excellence in Nursing in two categories: Community Care/Ambulatory Care, and Management/Nurse Executives; recognition of her philanthropic efforts among a series of giving profiles by the Women Giving Circle of Howard County in Celebration of Black Philanthropy Month (2021), an acknowledgement by the Integrative Providers Association (IPA) of Olateju being among “an exceptional group of nurses” (2021), and was named Maryland Local Hero by Tmobile & Patch for helping families and communities gain access to healthier foods through Food and Care For All (FCFA) in 2022.