Partnership and Collaboration

Dr Anthony Ngugi is a Professor of Epidemiology and Population Health with 18 years of experience in health research in Africa. He is currently the Chair, Department of Population Health and Associate Dean for Research at the Medical College, Aga Khan University – East Africa. His interests range from healthy ageing in LMICs, epidemiology of epilepsy, community health information systems, and application of data sciences to population health challenges. He trains and mentors students and faculty of research methods, application of principles of epidemiology in research and epidemiological analyses. Dr. Ngugi is a MPI of the NIH funded study to establish a Longitudinal Study of Health and Ageing in Kenya (LOSHAK) as a platform for long-term population-based cohort studies of health trajectories and their determinants in a rapidly ageing population in a LMIC context. He is also a Kenya CO-PI of the MRC (UK) funded Multi-National Implementation of Multimodal Strategies to promote Healthy Brain Ageing in Sub-Saharan Africa (The AFRICA-FINGERS Project). He is also a key member of the NIH/NIA and HCAP- International Network supported efforts to establish a HCAP-Africa Network. Dr. Ngugi also has a key focus on strengthening local health systems by providing technical data solutions in low resource settings. He is the architect and PI of the Kaloleni-Rabai Health and Demographic Surveillance System (KRHDSS) in the coast of Kenya, a demographic and health data infrastructure and 100k plus cohort that supports the local health system in data generation and use while also serving as a population health research platform. His interests also include the application of data science approaches to predict population health outcomes, improving the allocative efficiency of health interventions and developing and testing precision public health tools useful to community and local public health officials.

Dr Felix Oluoch is a public health and climate health researcher at Aga Khan University, where he holds joint postdoctoral roles with the Department of Population Health and the Institute for Global Health and Development. He holds a Doctor of Public Health, a Master of Public Health in Health Systems Management, and a Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Sciences and Technology. His work combines spatial epidemiology, environmental and climate health, and data science to examine how environmental exposures, socioeconomic conditions, and access to essential services shape population health and household vulnerability.  Within ACACIA, he integrates longitudinal data from the Kaloleni–Rabai Health and Demographic Surveillance System with climate, environmental, and geospatial to study household care needs, demographic change, water and sanitation, and health. His wider research includes heat and flood exposure, health service accessibility, child nutrition, healthy ageing, and climate resilience in health facilities, using reproducible analytical workflows, satellite data, and spatial methods to support locally relevant public health planning and climate adaptation.

Dr Jackim Nyamari is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Population Health at Aga Khan University. He holds a Ph.D., a Master of Philosophy, and a Bachelor of Science, all in Environmental Health. Dr Nyamari has extensive experience in research and capacity building, with scholarly expertise spanning climate change and health, occupational health and safety, injury prevention, and food and water sanitation. He has been actively involved in various multidisciplinary and collaborative research projects, working with partners both within and beyond Africa. Dr Nyamari brings to this team a strong methodological expertise and a demonstrated ability to engage meaningfully with local communities, co-designing contextually relevant and sustainable approaches to addressing complex local and global health challenges.

Dr Rosebella Iseme-Ondiek is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Population Health at Aga Khan University. She holds a PhD in Clinical Epidemiology and Community Medicine, a Master of Public Health (Distinction), and a Bachelor of Biomedical Science. Her research spans food systems, nutrition, non-communicable diseases, and health systems, with a strong emphasis on capacity building and applied, policy-relevant research in low- and middle-income settings.

Dr Iseme-Ondiek’s work is grounded in community-driven approaches that harness local knowledge and resources to address complex global health challenges, including those arising at the intersection of climate change, dietary practices and other health behaviours, and care systems. She has led and contributed to multi-institutional and interdisciplinary collaborations across Africa and beyond, strengthening health research, and surveillance.

She currently leads the Kaloleni–Rabai Health and Demographic Surveillance System (KRHDSS), a population-based platform in Kilifi County on the Kenyan coast, established to strengthen the capacity of the local Department of Health in the systematic collection, processing, and use of population-level health and vital events data for planning and decision-making, while simultaneously supporting population health research.

Oloo Allan Thomas is an accomplished research and monitoring & evaluation (M&E) professional with over seven years of experience coordinating and implementing research projects across the health, social protection, and development sectors in Kenya. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Sociology with IT from Maseno University, a Higher Diploma in Project Management from the Kenya Institute of Management, and a Certification in Data Analysis (RStudio, SPSS). His work spans quantitative and qualitative research design, Monitoring and Evaluation, and the translation of complex findings into actionable insights for programs and policy.

He has been a Research Associate at the USAID funded Palladium, Health Policy Plus (HP+) , where he strengthened research design systems and supported the National Health Accounts survey, followed by a role as Research Associate at Save the Children International, coordinating qualitative and quantitative stakeholder assessments under the MEAL framework. Most recently, as Assistant Research Officer at LVCT Health, he coordinated  the “Integrating Female Genital Schistosomiasis into Sexual Reproductive Health (FGS-SRH) project,” leading data quality audits, capacity-building, and analysis that informed uptake strategies and improved health systems.

Oloo currently serves as Research Coordinator for the African Climate-Care Nexus Research Hub (ACACIA), “Assessing the Direct and Indirect Effects of Climate Change on Care Work in Kilifi, Kenya,” at Aga Khan University, an IDRC-funded initiative focusing on the climate-care work nexus in Kenya for sustainable and equitable economies. In this role, he coordinates activities across AKU, consortium partners, advisory group members, and external collaborators, supports stakeholder mapping across Kenya to identify key care–climate actors and policy entry points, and liaises with Health and Demographic Surveillance System (HDSS) teams to support data access processes, documentation, and coordination of research activities. He also supports data preparation workflows, including documentation and coordination of climate-data matching processes, and leads the preparation, submission, and renewal of ethical and NACOSTI approvals in line with AKU, national, and partner requirements.

Sally Archibald works on understanding the dynamics and biogeography of savanna ecosystems. She is a Professor at the School of Animal Plant and Environmental Sciences at Wits University. As PI of the Future Ecosystems for Africa program, she drives research to identify restoration and conservation interventions in Africa that align with social, biodiversity, and development needs. Sally is on the advisory board of the Leverhulme Centre for Wildfires, Environment, and Society. 

Chevonne Reynolds is currently a lecturer in the School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand, where she also completed her MSc degree in resource conservation biology. However, before returning to her alma mater in 2018, Chevonne spent many productive and valuable years at the FitzPatrick Institute where she completed her PhD under the supervision of Prof. Graeme Cumming and undertook a short post-doc with Prof. Claire Spottiswoode. Chevonne also co-ordinates and teaches on the landscape ecology module of the Fitztitute’s Conservation Biology MSc course.

Natasha Shilubane is a science communicator and researcher with a background in ecological research, including a BScHons in Zoology, where looked at resource partitioning in giant petrels. And an MSc in Marine Biology, where she investigated acoustic communication in humpback dolphins in KZN. With experience in citizen science and public engagement, her published research has examined how social media can support citizen-science participation. As a Research Assistant with the African Care and Climate Innovation Alliance (ACACIA) Hub, she is interested in the intersections between climate change, inequality, and community-based research projects, particularly how research can inform more inclusive, just approaches to climate resilience.