Ms. Immaculate Mary hold two Masters degrees- one in Social Work from Stella Marris College Chennai and the other in Psychology from University of Chennai . She has done her M.Phil in Community Health and Social Medicine from Jawaharlal Nehru University , New Delhi . Her dissertation was on Socioeconomic and Health Conditions of Urban Poor Living in the streets of Chennai. She was awarded the gold medal for academic proficiency in MA Social Work and selected as the best outgoing student during her graduate and post graduate studies. She was trained at the Schizophrenia Research Foundation and Sri. Ramachandra Medical College Chennai in psychiatric social work. She currently works as a Faculty in Maternal and Child Health at the Institute of Health Systems (IHS). Prior to joining IHS she has worked as the Research Coordinator and Training Officer at Don Bosco, Bangalore , Counsellor (Deaddiction) at the TR Ranganathan Clinical Research Foundation and External Evaluator at the Navanirmana Social Institute, Stella Marris College , Chennai. She has rich experience in working on health issues of marginalized populations. She had archived and documented 25 years [1980-2005] of innovative programmes for street and working children undertaken by BOSCO in Bangalore and assisted in bringing out two books. “Street Presence” as an innovative model of working with children on the streets’ and “Buddhivantha”- An alternative education model for the children on the streets. She has also worked as Counsellor and a family therapist for the victims of drug abuse at the TTK Ranganathan Clinical Research Foundation, Chennai. She has carried out evaluations and impact assessments of a number of public health programmes, the most recent being an outcome evaluation of the Bill and Melinda Gates funded Frontier HIV Prevention Programme being implemented in Andhra Pradesh by the International HIV/AIDS Alliance. Her primary area of research interest includes Interdisciplinary Qualitative Research in Health systems/ services, Substance Abuse problems among children, Social Determinants of Health with special focus on women, children and socially excluded communities.