Jeanne Nizigiyimana

Jeanne Françoise Nizigiyimana leads the Valleywise Center for Refugee and Global Health at Valleywise Health in Phoenix, where she also chairs the Refugee Health Community Advisory Coalition. With over 20 years of refugee work, she co-founded the Refugee Women’s Health Clinic. Originally from Burundi, her own refugee journey inspires a career as an international medical social worker and public health agent serving underserved populations globally.

She designs and grows culturally grounded community health programs co-designed and co-implemented by an interdisciplinary, multicultural team. As co-founder of the Refugee Women’s Health Clinic in 2008, she developed a nationally recognised team of Cultural Health Navigators — a first of its kind in Arizona — to help refugees navigate the healthcare system.

In 1999 she co-founded Refugee Women United for Progress, Inc. in Phoenix. She has volunteered with ASU’s Global Center for Applied Health Research on community-based participatory research in Burundi, and has mentored more than 24 graduate interns from medicine, social work and public health. She serves on several boards and is a local and national keynote speaker on refugee and behavioral health.