Team

Dr Ahmed Adam
MSc Vaccinology Drug Development, B.Pharm, MSc One Health Research Ethics

Dr. Ahmed Adam currently works with the Mombasa County Department of health as the head research coordinator. He is a vaccinologist, Bioethicist, and a pharmacist. As the Head research coordinator, he supervises and authorizes the ongoing research in Mombasa and strengthens research in the department by training health workers on research methods.

He is the secretary to the Mombasa ethics review committee and ensures that all research in Mombasa is conducted ethically. He will be a Co-Principal investigator and government decision maker for County Government of Mombasa assisting in the implementation of the WHEELER study.

Dr Bilali Yusuf Mazoya
Sub County Manager of Health
Kilifi North Sub-County, Kilifi County

Bilali Mazoya is a Senior Pharmacist working with the County Government of Kilifi as a Sub County Manager of Health of Kilifi North Sub County, Kilifi County. He is currently pursuing a Master of Public Health and Master of Business Administration. Bilali currently is part of the WHEELER (Women in Health and their Equity, Economic and Livelihood statuses during periods of Emergency and Response) study Research Team as a Co-Principal Investigator (Government Decision Maker), which is funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and implemented by Aga Khan University, the University of Manitoba, and the County governments of Kilifi and Mombasa in Kenya. He is a registered (Reg. No 2257) with the Pharmacy and Poisons Board and a Member of the Pharmaceutical Society of Kenya. As a Government decision maker, he has been largely involved in policy and law formulation at County level and National level within the Ministry of Health. He was largely involved in the formulation of the Kilifi County Health Services Improvement Fund Act, 2016 at County level and at National level, the Ministry of Health referral guidelines to name but a few.

Dr Elsabe du Plessis

Dr. Elsabé du Plessis is social scientist at the University of Manitoba’s Institute for Global Public Health (UM IGPH). Dr. du Plessis’s research interests are in the area of critical global health studies and understanding power and inequity in global health – both in the organization and practices of global health and in global health interventions. Her project, Flexible sustainabilities.

A project ethnography of a global maternal and child health project, (funded by Research Manitoba) focused on the broader terrain of power in global health while subsequent work focused on the ways in which broader power relations shape inequity in interventions, specifically pertaining to gender, sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and research methods.

Dr. du Plessis was one of the leads on a recent CanWaCH-funded project to develop innovative research and analysis strategies for understanding adolescent SRHR and gender. The project adopted a mixed-methods approach and successfully developed a peer ethnographic approach for adolescents. Building on this work, dr. du Plessis is currently a Research Associate and Gender Analysis Specialist for the UM IGPH and the qualitative research project lead for two multi-year ASRHR project implemented by development partners in Tanzania. In addition to her role at UM IGPH, dr. du Plessis is a member of the CanWaCH Metric Working Group, collaborating with monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) specialists from Canadian and international development organizations on improved MEL practices in global health and development, specifically promoting the use of in-depth qualitative methodology.

Evaline Lang’at
MPH, BscN

Evaline Lang’at has a Master of Public Health from Flinders University in Australia, as well as a Bachelor of Nursing Science. She is a University of Washington public health international professional fellowships in global health leadership recipient.

She has more than 8 years of health experience, having worked as the County Research Coordinator at the Department of Health, County Government of Kilifi, Kenya for six years and as a public health researcher and project lead at the Aga Khan University, Centre of Excellence in Women and Child Health for two years.

Mrs. Langat has experience in both quantitative and qualitative research and has the rare combination of end-user and academic expertise required for the translation of findings into effective, gender transforming, and long-term policies and programs across multiple sectors. She has also worked in the clinical setting (maternal and child health unit), where she actively participated in the provision of services to pregnant women, new mothers, and their infants, with an emphasis on making pregnancy a positive experience.

She is a public health researcher and project lead at the Centre of Excellence in Women and Child Health (CoEWCH), as well as the principal investigator (PI) for the WHEELER (Women in Health and their Equity, Economic and Livelihood statuses during periods of Emergency and Response) study, which is funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and implemented by Aga Khan University, the University of Manitoba, and the County governments of Kilifi and Mombasa in Kenya.

Dr Ferdinand Okwaro
PhD

Dr Ferdinand Okwaro is a Medical Anthropologist with over ten years of post-doctoral research experience conducting health research in various contexts and fields at institutional and community level. He obtained his PhD from Heidelberg University in Germany. Prior to joining the Centre of Excellence, he held a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Oslo (Norway), a post-doctoral research fellowship at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and a visiting research fellowship at the University of Cambridge in the UK.

Dr. Okwaro’s main expertise is in the design and implementation of health research projects employing a mixed method approach that combines qualitative and quantitative methodologies. He is also experienced in policy analysis and engagement as well as in evaluation of health programs.

Irene Kibara
MBA, Strategic Management, CPA (K)

Irene Kibara is an Associate of the CoEWCH based at the AKU Mombasa Research Office serving as a focal person for research administration for the projects in Coast Kenya under the department of Centre of Excellence in Women and Children’s Health. She joined AKU in May 2017 as an Administrative Manager for the Mombasa Research Office until February 2022. She is currently involved in the day to day office and projects’ administrative roles for CoEWCH in liaison with the Project Managers in Coast. Irene is a Certified Public Accountant, CPA (K), Strathmore College alumni and a holder of MBA Strategic Management from Daystar University.

With an experience spanning to more than 15 years, Irene has worked in senior roles in research and implementation projects handling both administrative and financial duties. Previously working for International Centre for Reproductive Health (ICRH) for 12 years having risen from an Assistant Accountant to the Director of Finance, Administration and Human Resources. She is currently coordinating the activities of the WHEELER Project as a Research Specialist.

Dr Lisa Avery

Dr. Lisa Avery is an academic, clinician and global health specialist at the University of Manitoba. She holds the positions of Assistant professor in the Depts of Community Health Sciences and Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, Max Rady College of Medicine in the Rady in the Rady Faculty of Health Sciences, and Director, African Initiatives and Operations at the University of Manitoba’s Institute for Global Public Health.

Her research focuses on improving the health and lives of women and children through development and implementation of innovative health interventions that are contextually relevant, and informed by gender equality, health equity, rights based, participatory and intersectionality frameworks. Examples of her innovative solutions to improve health outcomes include: the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) funded Karnataka, India based nurse mentoring program, subsequently scaled up by the Government of India to three additional states and incorporated into the government training programs; and the Graphless partograph, a labour monitoring tool implemented and taken to scale in Taita and Taveta County, Kenya for which she was awarded a Grand Challenges Canada Rising Stars in Global Health grant in 2017.

Dr Avery has successfully obtained funding, as a principal investigator and co-investigator from varied agencies, including IDRC, GAC, CIHR, AUCC and BMGF. She has a proven track record of successful implementation, evaluation, knowledge translation/mobilization and transition to scale of large scale international collaborative global health research and capacity building projects in both Africa and Asia, including but not limited to the Canadian Muskoka Intiative’s Meeting critical health care and nutritional needs to improve maternal, neonatal and child health in vulnerable African Populations; Technical assistance to improve maternal, neonatal and child health outcomes through the National Rural Health Mission in Karnataka, India; Students for global maternal, neonatal and child health: a Canadian-Kenyan Partnership; CAREG Ushirikiano: Building research capacity to improve maternal and child health outcomes in Kenya and Canada; Harnessing mobile phone usage for HIV and horizontal health systems improvement: PMTCT and Operations research on PPH control, newborn asphyxia and breastfeeding in Uttar Pradesh.

She currently co- leads the WHEELER project in Kenya generating evidence on unpaid care work and health care providers. She was an invited speaker at the 2023 Women Deliver conference in Rwanda where she spoke on care responsibilities and health providers at an IDRC side event. From 2008 to 2017 Dr. Avery was the Editor of Entre Nous, the WHO Regional Office for Europe’s European Magazine for Sexual and Reproductive Health. She has authored greater than 50 knowledge products including government guidelines, technical documents, and peer reviewed publications, and teaches in the University’s introductory course to global public health. Her academic career has been enriched and her research perspective enhanced by two maternity leaves (in 2013 for 12 months and 2020 for 19 months).

Prof Marleen Temmerman
MD, MPH, PhD, Professor Obstetrics and Gynaecology, MBS, Honorary Senator

Prof Temmerman is Director of the Centre of Excellence in Women and Child Health, Aga Khan University, Nairobi, Kenya. She is also the Chairholder, AKU UNESCO Chair in Youth Leadership in Health, Education, Gender and Sciences.

Previously, she served as Director of RHR, at the World Health Organization, HQ Geneva (2012-15). During her tenure she was the focal point of the WHO-FIGO Alliance. She is the Founding Director of the International Centre of Reproductive Health (ICRH) at Ghent University, Belgium, with offices in Kenya and Mozambique.

She was elected Senator in the Belgian Parliament (2007-12) where was a member of the Commission on Social Affairs, and Chair of the Commission on Foreign Affairs and Defense. In that capacity, she was the Vice-President of the European Parliamentary Forum, and Chair of the HIV/AIDS Advisory Group of the Inter-Parliamentary Union.

She has a strong academic background with over 600 peer reviewed publications and books in the area of women, adolescents and children health and rights, family planning, HIV/AIDS, infectious diseases, and health systems (Scopus H-index 99). She supervised over 50 PhD students in Europe, Africa, Latin-America, and China, and won several awards and honours. She is Professor-Emeritus OB/GYN at Ghent University, Belgium.

She is an International Member of the US National Academy of Medicine, an International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Fellow of the Royal College Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, a Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences, and received the BMJ Lifetime Achievement Award 2010.

Dr Michaela Mantel
MD, MPH

Dr Michaela Mantel (MD, MPH) is a health expert working in low- and middle-income countries for more than 35 years. Her clinical experiences include internal medicine, anaesthesia, obstetrics and gynaecology in Germany and Tanzania.

She did her Master Degree at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, USA, and worked as freelance expert with governments and development partners in Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe from 1994 to 2006. Her focus is on population health; health system strengthening; health policy development; public private partnership and community health, especially in sexual and reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health.

Programme scoping and feasibility studies, monitoring, evaluation, research and learning are central throughout her public health career. From 2006 to 2021, Dr Mantel worked as health programme officer at the Aga Khan Foundation in Geneva, Switzerland and as faculty member at the Aga Khan University in Nairobi, Kenya responsible for project implementation, monitoring, evaluation and research. Since 2021, Dr Mantel is the Managing Director of the global consultant agency ‘The Health Associates Ltd’ based in Germany and Kenya.

Dr Robert Lorway
PhD

Dr. Lorway is a socio-cultural medical anthropologist whose research methods and findings directly contribute to the de-monopolization and democratization of global health evidence for sexual health among sex worker activist communities in India and Kenya.

Since 2009, as the only critical social scientist in the University of Manitoba Institute for Global Public Health, he has provided ongoing community–based research training to highly stigmatized male, female, and transgender sex worker activists, which gave rise to a community research wing in the renowned sex worker collective known as Ashodaya Samithi, based in Mysore, India.

With Dr. Lorway’s technical support, this research wing effectively conducted community–driven studies; provided ethical oversight to larger surveillance initiatives in the region; brokered knowledge sharing and usage agreements with biomedical researchers; and completed a community-led PrEP (HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis) demonstration trial—globally recognized as highly successful.

Working under the umbrella of the Bill and Melinda Gates-funded HIV initiative in India known as Avahan, Ashodaya leaders and Lorway facilitated the exchange and mobilization of community-based research processes and local knowledge to meet the needs of activist organizations in three additional urban contexts (Bangalore, Bellary, and Belgaum). His SSHRC Insight grant (2014-2019) chronicled the vital role of activists in the unfolding HIV epidemic response across four Indian States (Karnataka, Tamil Naidu, Maharashtra, and Andhra Pradesh) amid a shifting climate of dwindling and uncertain state funding, post Avahan. In 2013 (CIHR Operating grant), Dr. Lorway created a dynamic “South-to South” research platform that enabled Ashodaya health activists to directly exchange their research learnings with a Kenyan male sex work collective that delivers sexual health services to over 5000 members in Nairobi.

His community-based research program in Kenya recently has expanded to focus on questions of data justice with respect to emerging forms of surveillance that employ biometrics, HIV molecular analysis, and contact tracing. In close collaboration with male and females sex worker activists, microbiologists, epidemiologists, clinicians, health officials, social scientists, and his graduate students, Dr. Lorway has developed a new research proposal that was submitted in October 2020 to the New Frontiers Research Fund (housed within SSHRC). Employing a multi- disciplinary team approach, this project strives to co-develop (and ethnographically document the unfolding of) an ethically safe, community-owned and regulated molecular sequencing database and repository of biomaterials, building on more decolonizing approaches forged by Indigenous First Nations leaders in New Zealand and Canada.