Dilys Walker

Dilys Walker, MD, is an Adjunct Professor at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health's Maternal and Child Health Program. Her primary academic appointment is at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences and Global Health Sciences. She leads the $25 million Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation-funded East African Preterm Birth Initiative, addressing preterm birth in Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda.

Dr. Walker’s research focuses on improving maternal and neonatal care in low-resource settings, emergency obstetric care systems, and midwifery models. She co-founded PRONTO International, an NGO delivering low-tech simulation-based training for obstetric and neonatal emergencies in LMICs, with implementation trials in Mexico, Guatemala, Kenya, and India.

She holds an MD from UC San Diego, completed residency at the University of Pennsylvania, and was UCSF’s first Family Planning Fellow. Her work spans global health policy, adolescent pregnancy prevention, and maternal mortality reduction strategies.