Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek - Research Foundation Flanders (FWO), Belgium awarded me a senior postdoctoral fellowship. My project focuses on Precision identification of maternal health vulnerability in sub-Saharan African conurbations using advanced geospatial approaches. I continue to be based at the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp. See a summary of my project here and here

I work with Prof Lenka to better understand spatial inequities in maternal health interventions and services within urban areas in SSA. This includes i) modelling robust travel time to emergency care that incorporates referral pathways, ii) making inferences on the coverage of interventions at high spatial resolution, iii) understanding maternal health vulnerability and  iv) validating global climate temperature gridded surfaces based on local data across cities in SSA.

Under the Newton International fellowship by The Royal Society I undertake a postdoc working with Dr Emanuele Giorgi to develop geostatistical methods for mapping disease prevalence in presence of incomplete spatial information in low resource settings

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 I work with the Population Health Unit where we continually explore population health at high spatial and temporal resolution. I closely work with Dr Prof Okiro and Prof Bob Snow on health geography 

Immediately after completing PhD, I had a career development year to chart a way for my research. I used this time mainly to finish my PhD papers, generate new ideas for applications and establish more collaborative and employment networks.

I assessed child survival in Kenya since the 60s, the disparity in the coverage of child health interventions, and the impact of these interventions on child survival at the subnational level. Grateful to my supportive advisors, Emelda, Bob Snow,  Benn Sartorius and Giorgi and the scholarship from The Initiative to Develop African Research Leaders. I worked with many stakeholders including the local media discussing child survival in Kenya with both the experts and the general audience. One of my PhD papers won an international award 

My passion for spatial health metrics and their application in better understanding health problems gave me an impetus to pursue a two-year MSc.  used spatial models to estimate the number of pregnant women who likely missed a bed net during their antenatal clinics.  My gratitude to the Higher Loans Education Board for the scholarship.

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I was involved in mapping malaria prevalence, coverage of malaria control measures, modelling spatial accessibility and assembling spatial databases of health facilities.  We worked closely with national malaria control programmes to support decision making using evidence through the LINK and INFORM projects. My career in health geography was shaped during this time by Prof Abdisalan Noor and Prof Bob Snow.

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 I enjoyed sessions on epidemiology and research My project, analyzing spatial accessibility to basic public health services in South Sudan would form the basis of my interest in health geography. This was facilitated by a scholarship from The Initiative to Develop African Research Leaders (IDeAL). 

I was given my first opportunity to practice what I had learnt on Campus. I engaged in many engineering survey and cadastral projects. My most memorable days were surveying in Tatu city putting new survey beacons in the beautiful coffee bushes. 

I spent 5 years studying B.Sc. Geomatic Engineering & GIS. I learnt how to think spatially. I remember with Nostalgia,  the Vice Chancellor’s academic excellence awards for three consecutive years and Alumni of the Year, years later.

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