Nawal M. Nour, `88

Founder, African Women's Health Center

Dr. Nawal Nour actively researches the health and policy issues regarding female genital cutting (FGC).  She has spoken in numerous academic and national conferences regarding the medical management of women who have undergone this practice.  Committed to the eradication of FGC, she travels throughout the country conducting workshops to educate African refugees and immigrants on the medical complications and legal issues of this practice.  She served on a FGC task force for the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology and was the primary author of Female Genital Cutting, Clinical Management of Circumcised Women, published by ACOG.  This slide-lecture kit aims to educate obstetricians-gynecologists on the medical management of circumcised women in the United States and Canada. 

Dr. Nour is a board certified Obstetrician/Gynecologist and is the Director of the Ambulatory Obstetrics Practice at the Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA. She is an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School. She also established the African Women's Health Center which provides appropriate health and outreach programs to the African community in Boston. Dr. Nour was honored as a 2003 MacArthur Foundation Fellow for creating the country’s only center of its kind that focuses on both physical and emotional needs of women who have had or undergone FGC.  This work has been covered by the Associated Press, New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, O and Essence magazine and CNN Espanol.  In 2008, Dr. Nour became the Director of the Global Obstetrics and Gynecology Division at BWH.

Born in the Sudan and raised in Egypt and England, Dr. Nour came to the United States to attend Brown University.  She received her medical degree from Harvard Medical School in 1994 and completed a chief residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA in 1998.  She received the Commonwealth Fund/Harvard University Fellowship in Health Policy where she obtained her MPH at Harvard School of Public Health in 1999.  She has received honorary degrees from Bowdoin College and Williams College for her community work and outreach.