Amira Adawe has more than 16 years of history of working in public health, including local, state, and community-based public health programs, research, and policy. She is the Founder and Executive Director of the Beautywell Project. BW is a nonprofit organization that aims to combat skin-lightening and chemical exposures, address other environmental impacts, and improve community health literacy in Minnesota, Nationwide, and globally. For the past four years, Amira has trained government agencies in the US and globally to combat the illegal trade of cosmetics, especially skin-lightening products that contain mercury, effectively. She has been advising the global partnership initiative “Eliminating Mercury Skin-lightening Products” led by the UN Environment Program (UNEP).
In 2023, Amira chaired and facilitated the first global stakeholder group and meeting to eliminate mercury in skin-lightening products. She is also an Adjunct Instructor at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. Amira previously managed the Minnesota Children’s Cabinet of Governor Mark Dayton, where she worked on early childhood in all policies and systems using an equity lens. She is a public health researcher whose research interests include women’s and children’s health in access to health care, environmental justice, skin-lightening practices, and chemical exposures. Amira is the host of Beauty-Wellness Talk Podcast.
Amira has an undergraduate degree in Family Social Science from the University of Minnesota, a Master of Public Health from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, and an Executive Certificate in Nonprofit Leadership, Nonprofit, Public, and Organizational Management from Harvard Kennedy School. She was also a Policy Fellow 2015-2016 at Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. Amira was a 2020 Bush Foundation Fellow. Amira’s work has been featured on local, national, and international media, including CNN, StarTribune, MinnPost, STAT news, National Public Radio (NPR), Matter of Fact with Soledad O’Brien, and WSB-TV, Minnesota Public Radio, New York Times, Bloomberg News and Associated Press, PBS NewHour, Kare11, Good Morning America (ABC), consumer Reports, Voice of America, Sahan Journal and TIB.