Sheila Leatherman is a research professor at Gillings School of Global Public Health, The University of North Carolina. She conducts research and policy analysis globally, focusing on health care quality and health systems reform, as well as the nascent field of integrating microfinance and community health programs as a strategy for poverty reduction and improved health outcomes. She was elected to the Institute of Medicine at the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2002. Through research and policy advising, she has worked with Afghanistan, Australia, Benin, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Canada, Cambodia, India, Peru, Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, South Sudan, Tanzania and the UK. She has published widely in the field of health care quality including national quality chartbooks in the US (3), UK (1) and Canada (1) and articles in peer-reviewed literature on health policy, quality measurement and health reforms. In 2007, she was awarded the honour of Commander of the British Empire (CBE) by Queen Elizabeth for her work over a decade as an independent evaluator of the impact of government reforms on quality of care in the NHS.