Alumna Wins BU Distinguished Alumni Award.

Sarah Degnan Kambou (’84, UNI’94) received a Distinguished Alumni Award on September 26 during the Boston University Alumni Weekend.

Conferred by the BU Alumni Association, the prestigious award is given to individuals who have “distinguished themselves by bringing credit to their communities, their profession, and the University.”

Kambou is the president of the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), which provides evidence-based insights to inform programs and policies that alleviate poverty, promote gender equality, and protect the rights of women and girls. She joined ICRW in 2002, serving in numerous leadership roles before becoming president in 2010. In 2012, President Obama appointed Kambou to the President’s Global Development Council. The next year, she received the Perdita Huston Human Rights Award from the United Nations Association of the National Capital Area.

While an international health policy doctoral candidate at SPH, Kambou co-founded the Center for International Health (now the Center for Global Health and Development) in 1985, serving as its director for eight years. She then spent more than a decade in Sub-Saharan Africa, managing programs and operations for CARE in Ethiopia, Mali, Cote d’Ivoire, Togo, and Zambia, and designing community-led reproductive health programs in post-conflict Rwanda, Sudan, and Somaliland.

Kambou is the fourth SPH alum to receive a Distinguished Alumni Award. The others are Howard Koh (SPH’95), Elizabeth Cohen (SPH’92), and Jeannine Rivet (SPH’81), while Ali Noorani (SPH’99) and Sera Bonds (SPH’04) have received the BU Young Alumni Award. Kambou receive her award at the Best of BU Luncheon, the cornerstone of the BU Alumni Weekend.

SPH awarded Kambou a Distinguished Alumni Award in 2010.