Mehret Mandefro (born 1977) is an Ethiopian–American film/television producer, writer, physician and

anthropologist An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and ...

. She is the group leader of the Indaba Africa, a co-founder of Realness Institute and co-founder of Truth Aid Media and is a board member of advisors for the shared Harvest Fund. She is also a recipient of

The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans, founded by Paul Soros and Daisy Soros in 1997, is a United States postgraduate fellowship for immigrants and children of immigrants. In 2021, the Fellowship received 2,445 applications and aw ...

(2001) and in 2007 sat as one of the 41 distinguished New American panelists. In 2016, she was honoured by

Carnegie Corporation The Carnegie Corporation of New York is a philanthropic fund established by Andrew Carnegie in 1911 to support education programs across the United States, and later the world. Carnegie Corporation has endowed or otherwise helped to establis ...

of New York as one of America's Great Immigrants.

Life and education

Mandefro was born in

Addis Ababa Addis Ababa (; am, አዲስ አበባ, , new flower ; also known as , lit. "natural spring" in Oromo), is the capital and largest city of Ethiopia. It is also served as major administrative center of the Oromia Region. In the 2007 census, t ...

Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...

in 1977 and grew up in

Alexandria, Virginia Alexandria is an independent city (United States), independent city in the northern region of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Virginia, United States. It lies on the western bank of the Potomac River approximately south of Downto ...

, US. Her father, Ayalew Mandefro, was Ethiopia's Minister of Defence and her mother, Tsedale K. Mandefro. Her family escaped to the US after the coming of Ethiopia's

Communist regime A communist state, also known as a Marxist–Leninist state, is a one-party state that is administered and governed by a communist party guided by Marxism–Leninism. Marxism–Leninism was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, the Cominte ...

which tried assassinating her father. She attended

Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (also known as TJHSST, TJ, or Jefferson) is a Virginia state-chartered magnet high school in Fairfax County, Virginia operated by Fairfax County Public Schools. The school occupies the buil ...

and completed her undergraduate and graduate

medical degree A medical degree is a professional degree admitted to those who have passed coursework in the fields of medicine and/or surgery from an accredited medical school. Obtaining a degree in medicine allows for the recipient to continue on into special ...

s at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

. She went on to pursue a master's degree in

Global Public Health Global means of or referring to a globe and may also refer to: Entertainment * ''Global'' (Paul van Dyk album), 2003 * ''Global'' (Bunji Garlin album), 2007 * ''Global'' (Humanoid album), 1989 * ''Global'' (Todd Rundgren album), 2015 * Bruno ...

at the

London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) is a public research university in Bloomsbury, central London, and a member institution of the University of London that specialises in public health and tropical medicine. The inst ...

as a

Fulbright Scholar The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

. She completed the

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) is an American philanthropic organization. It is the largest one focused solely on health. Based in Princeton, New Jersey, the foundation focuses on access to health care, public health, health equity, ...

Health and Society Scholars Program at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

with a focus on the social determinants of health and went on to pursue a PhD in

Cultural Anthropology Cultural anthropology is a branch of anthropology focused on the study of cultural variation among humans. It is in contrast to social anthropology, which perceives cultural variation as a subset of a posited anthropological constant. The portma ...

Temple University Temple University (Temple or TU) is a public state-related research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1884 by the Baptist minister Russell Conwell and his congregation Grace Baptist Church of Philadelphia then called Ba ...

where she completed a dissertation on the formation of American health policy in the federal government. She went on to train in primary care internal medicine at

Montefiore Medical Center Montefiore Medical Center is a premier academic medical center and the primary teaching hospital of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York City. Its main campus, the Henry and Lucy Moses Division, is located in the Norwoo ...

and

Albert Einstein College of Medicine Albert Einstein College of Medicine is a research-intensive medical school located in the Morris Park neighborhood of the Bronx in New York City. Founded in 1953, Einstein operates as an independent degree-granting institution as part of t ...

where she pursued research on HIV disparities among black women. Mandefro was also a White House Fellow in the

Obama Administration Barack Obama's tenure as the 44th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 2009, and ended on January 20, 2017. A Democrat from Illinois, Obama took office following a decisive victory over Republican ...

Career

Mandefro is one of the 2009 Honorees in the Black Girls Rock Awards, receiving the Community Service Award. In March 2014, she was one of the women honoured in the International Women's Day celebration in New York City, by WomenWerk. Also in 2014, she co-produced the film ''

Difret ''Difret'' is a 2014 Ethiopian drama film written and directed by Zeresenay Berhane Mehari. The film had its premiere in-competition at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival where it won the World Cinematic Dramatic Audience Award. Angelina Jolie se ...

'', directed by

Zeresenay Berhane Mehari Zeresenay Berhane Mehari (born 1974), is an Ethiopian filmmaker. He is notable as the director of critically acclaimed films ''Difret'' and ''Sweetness in the Belly''. Apart from cinema, he is the co-founder and Head of Original Content for Kana ...

. She co-executive produced a 2019 Zeresenay Berhane film titled, ''

Sweetness in the Belly ''Sweetness in the Belly'' is a 2019 drama film directed by Zeresenay Berhane Mehari, based on the novel of the same name by Camilla Gibb. It had its world premiere at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival. Plot In the 1960s, Lilly, a Br ...

'', alongside

Adrian Sturges Adrian Sturges (born 17 October 1976) is a British-born film producer. Early life Sturges was born in London, England and grew up in Rochester, Kent Education Sturges was educated at The King's School, Rochester, in Kent, in South East Englan ...

Laura Bickford Laura Conde Bickford (born September 30, 1968 in New York City, New York, USA) is an Academy Award nominated and Emmy Award nominated film and television producer who produced ''Traffic'', ''Che'', '' Duplicity'', ''Arbitrage'', and ''Beasts of No N ...

and Fiona Druckenmiller. In the same year, the documentary she co-directed and co-produced titled, "''The Loving Generation''", was nominated for a Webby People's Voice Award. The film was officially confirmed alongside three others to be internationally premiered at the prestigious

Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the largest publicly attended film festivals in the world, attracting over 480,000 people annually. Since its founding in 1976, TIFF has grown to become a permane ...

(TIFF). At the 2019 Cannes Film Festival held at Palais Des Festivals,

Cannes Cannes ( , , ; oc, Canas) is a city located on the French Riviera. It is a communes of France, commune located in the Alpes-Maritimes departments of France, department, and host city of the annual Cannes Film Festival, Midem, and Cannes Lions I ...

, France, she advised African filmmakers to build strategic partnerships by collaborating with one another, pointing out that other Africa countries can learn from

Nollywood Nollywood is a sobriquet that originally referred to the Nigerian film industry. The origin of the term dates back to the early 2000s, traced to an article in ''The New York Times''. Due to the history of evolving meanings and contexts, there ...

to improve on their film industries. She, alongside film director Abraham Gezahagne, in February 2020 represented

at the Berlinale Africa Hub, whereat she presented the opportunities available in and challenges faced by the film and TV industry the country. She, alongside

Alicia Keys Alicia Augello Cook (born January 25, 1981), known professionally as Alicia Keys, is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. A classically trained pianist, Keys started composing songs when she was 12 and was signed at 15 years old by Col ...

, Lacey Schwartz Delgado, Elliott Halpern and Elizabeth Trojian, executive produced the documentary, ''How It Feels To Be Free'', based on the Ruth Feldstein's book, ''How It Feels To Be Free: Black Women Entertainers and the Civil Rights Movement'', directed by

Yoruba Richen Yoruba Richen (born 1972, in New York City, New York) is an American film director, screenwriter and producer. Her work has been featured on PBS, New York Times Op Doc, Frontline Digital, New York Magazine’s website -The Cut, The Atlantic and ...

and is to be premiered in winter 2021 by

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

and

WNET WNET (channel 13), branded on-air as "Thirteen" (stylized as "THIRTEEN"), is a primary PBS member television station licensed to Newark, New Jersey, United States, serving the New York City area. Owned by The WNET Group (formerly known as the ...

Life and education

Career

Filmography

References

External links