13TH KEMRI ANNUAL SCIENTIFIC AND HEALTH CONFERENCE

Description

Rethinking strategic research-for-health through partnerships, innovation, evidence generation, and knowledge sharing in post-pandemic recovery era.

Objectives

Presenters

1. Dr. Mercy Mwangangi
   Dr. Mwangangi is a Health Economist and Policy Analyst with a background in Medicine. She has knowledge and experience in performing high quality Strategic Health Program Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation activities focusing on Universal Health Coverage and Primary Health Care with considerable experience in carrying out in depth Health Situation Analysis and producing of workable recommendations and guidelines on future program directions, incorporating international policies and standards, tailored to local needs
   


2. Dr. Roberts Frank
   Dr. Roberts is a holder of BS, DDS, a certificate in periodontics, and PhD in Microbiology. He is a Professor of Periodontics, the University of Washington, the Associate Dean for Regional & Global Affairs, Director of the Regional Initiatives in Dental Education (RIDE) program and the Pre-doctoral Program Director in the Periodontics Department at the University of Washington School of Dentistry (UWSOD). He has over twenty-five years of experience in research and dental education. He has served as Chief of Periodontics at the Seattle Veterans Administration Medical Center since 1997 where he practices and teaches clinically, with an inter-professional team-care approach. Knowledgeable in experiential learning, Dr. Roberts will serve as a mentor candidate for the Training in Research in Oral Health (TRIOH): A multidisciplinary collaboration between Dentistry, Nursing, and Pediatrics to build up research capacity in global oral health. He has widely published his work in peer review journals
   


3. Dr. Beth Barr
   Dr. Barr is an epidemiologist with over 20 years of program and research experience in Southern and Eastern Africa. After completing her secondary school studies in Kenya, she attended university in the US before returning to Africa to serve in the public health arena. She worked with Baylor College of Medicine in Botswana and Malawi establishing training projects in pediatric HIV treatment before joining the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Malawi. Dr Tippett Barr then worked for several years in the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) and was a key team member in the development and implementation of the historic â??PMTCT Option B+â? approach with the Malawi Ministry of Health, when antiretroviral therapy was first offered to pregnant and breastfeeding women regardless of CD4 count or clinical stage. In 2015, Dr. Barr became the CDC-Zimbabwe Country Director, and in 2018 moved back to Kenya as CDCâ??s Western Kenya Director, working in collaboration with KEMRIâ??s Centre for Global Health Research to establish the Family Health Unit. In 2022 Dr. Barr left CDC-Kenya to found the Nyanja Health Research Institute in Malawi, an organization with a dual mandate to conduct high impact research, and to train young researchers in how to disseminate their research findings with maximum impact.
   


4. Prof. Samson Muuo
   Muuo Nzou is an Assistant Principal Research Scientist, at the Center for Microbiology Research, Kenya Medical Research Institute and a Visiting Associate Professor, Nagasaki University. Previously, He worked as an Associate Professor, Institute of Tropical Medicine and Global Health, Nagasaki University, and a Principal Research Officer Nagasaki University, Institute of Tropical Medicine -Kenya Medical Research Institute Projects (NUITM-KEMRI PROJECT). He holds a MSc in Medical virology from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, a PhD in Medical Sciences from Nagasaki University and a Health Research Capacity Strengthening Postdoctoral Grant, Wellcome Trust, His interests in communicable and noncommunicable diseases focus on vaccine and diagnostics development, molecular epidemiology, surveillance and omics leading to drug resistance patterns in humans, where he has published extensively in these areas. He is also a member of surveillance cross-cutting sub-group of the World Health Organization (WHO) Diagnostic Technical Advisory Group (DTAG) for Neglected Tropical Diseases. He has mentored and supervised Masters and PhD students from different institutions internationally