TAMBRA RAYE STEVENSON

Featured in Forbes, Tambra Raye Stevenson is the founder/CEO of WANDA: Women Advancing Nutrition, Dietetics and Agriculture inspiring a new generation of women and girls to become ‘food sheroes’ in Africa and Diaspora.  As a mom and nutritionist, she is on a mission to inspire girls like her daughter Ruby to become healthy eaters, readers and leaders with” Where’s WANDA?” a bilingual book series introducing Little WANDA, the first girl character from the Diaspora promoting nutrition, who travels across Africa finding the foods to heal her community with the help of female farmers.
Building a ‘sisterhood of the soil,’ Tambra believes more women and girls deserve a pipeline and platform to educate, advocate, innovate and celebrate their diverse representation and leadership in the food system. As an African Diasporan who traced her heritage back home to the Fulani people in Nigeria and Niger, she is committed to Africa’s future and has served as mentor and reviewer in the Young African Leaders Initiative’s Mandela Washington Fellowship, a program of the U.S. Department of State.

Tambra spent her time in Boston assisting the Boston Black Women’s Health Institute in crafting campaigns to support women and girls of African descent with their signature sister circles. Fast forward 10 years later she made a pledge as part of a young leader delegation to the African Union in Ethiopia to make an impact in her sector around youth development and employment in keeping with the AU 2063 Agenda. These transformative experiences would plant the seeds in creating WANDA.
The Boren National Security Education scholar holds a degree in nutrition and public health from Tufts Medical School and Oklahoma State University. She formerly held posts in the US Department of Health and Human Services and US Department of Commerce. She currently resides in Washington, DC when not traveling. Bringing her federal experience from HHS and Commerce, she helped to set the agenda on women’s health and economic empowerment. She secured federal funding for the first-ever Washington Women and Girls Wellness Conference with 250 leaders to set an agenda to improve the health of 50% of our residents. She also led the development of the first Young Women’s Advisory Committee to support the D.C. Commission for Women. In addition she holds certificates in social marketing and global health communication from New York University-World Health Organization and University of South Florida School of Public Health.  Learn more at tambraraye.com.