Judith Bruce is a senior policy analyst at the Population Council. Through policy analysis and capacity building, she has changed the way the world thinks about quality of care from the client’s perspective and about the power and potential of the most excluded girls.

In the seminal analysis of adolescent girls’ lives - Uncharted Passage - Bruce and colleagues laid out the defining “case” for investing in the poorest girls globally. The programs often include social support, mentoring, and meaningful educational opportunities including financial literacy, health information and access.

She was among the first to illuminate the negative impact of child marriage—including violence and discrimination. She insisted on the term “child marriage” rather than “early marriage,” as the latter conceals the fact that child marriage is arguably the most regularly occurring, serious human rights abuse.

Bruce published the family planning quality-of-care framework, which was instrumental in the global shift in family planning programs from target-driven approaches to a focus on quality, as defined by a program’s ability to meet clients’ needs.

A graduate of Harvard University, Bruce has written extensively on population policy, adolescent girls’ status in the developing world, family dynamics, and women’s access to and control of resources inside and outside the household.