Emmanuel Nwala is Associate Director, Research at the Policy Innovation Centre (PIC), where he provides strategic and technical leadership for research, evidence generation, monitoring, evaluation, and learning across all programmes. He leads the Social Behavioural Science Research portfolio, a multidisciplinary unit that uses evidence-based methods to understand human behaviour, social norms, and drivers of change at individual, community, and systems levels. Under his leadership, the team has delivered high-impact studies, including national and subnational surveys, adolescent, gender and health research, process evaluations, and impact evaluations that inform programmes, policies, and practice. 

Before joining PIC, Emmanuel worked with several leading public health and development organisations, including USAID PROPEL Health, John Snow Research and Training Institute (JSI), RTI International, Population Council, Management Sciences for Health, and the Health Policy Research Group at the College of Medicine, University of Nigeria, Enugu Campus. In these roles, he led and supported health financing reforms, HIV prevention market-shaping initiatives, governance and social accountability interventions, reproductive, maternal, neonatal, and child health programmes, health policy and systems research, market research, and evidence-informed policy initiatives across national and sub-national levels in Nigeria. 

Emmanuel is a health economist  and public health and systems-strengthening professional with over 17 years of experience in designing, implementing, monitoring, and evaluating health programmes and systems-strengthening interventions. His expertise includes mixed-methods research, health financing, RMNCAH, social accountability, market shaping, impact evaluation, capacity strengthening, domestic resource mobilisation, and the translation of evidence into policies and programmes that improve health systems and development outcomes.