Maria Shairra A. Pacia Bello

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Philippines

Maria Shairra A. Pacia Bello

Shairra is the co-founder and Chief Science Officer at AHA! Behavioral Design — a behavioral science agency that integrates social and behavior change into systems, services, and community programs.  She leads national projects on behavior-focused strategy, research, and innovation across public health, civic engagement, and financial health.  Through collaborative work with government, organizations, and communities, she brings together pioneering SBC initiatives at scale—including the first national SBC strategy on stunting, the first wellness program targeting emotional well-being behaviors in public hospitals for frontliners, and the first behavior-focused financial health literacy program reaching over 120,000 public school teachers.  She also leads SBC research, program design and implementation, and monitoring and evaluation across diverse themes including disaster resilience, mental health, road safety, and vaccine hesitancy.  Shairra has since established a Public Health Behavioral Change Lab, focused on capacity-building, experimentation, and evidence use for government and development actors.  Through the EI fellowship, she looks forward to deepening her systems practice and collaborating with equity-driven leaders to scale behavioral solutions that empower Filipino communities.