Kaida Liang is the Director of Programs at the WI with more than 20 years of experience leading water and sanitation projects and field programs in more than 40 countries around the world. She began her WASH career as a CIDA (formerly Canadian International Development Agency) intern building household water treatment systems for remote communities in the Amazon Basin.

She joined disaster relief efforts in Central America after Hurricane Mitch and expanded her WASH work to Southeast Asia, Africa and the Middle East. After completing her MPH at UNC she led RCTs and research projects focused on water treatment, water quality and health impact on communities.  She joined WaterSHED as the Program Manager and acting Chief of Party for the USAID funded Global Development Alliance (GDA), WaterSHED (2008-2013).

She returned to UNC and joined the Water Institute in 2012 to lead the Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) program and is currently managing the WI's program portfolio and the annual Water and Health Conference.