Dr Emelda Aluoch Okiro

Emelda heads the Population Health Unit within the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme in Kenya. She has over 15 years of population health experience at country, regional and global levels. She also has proven competency in public health and health systems research, implementation and programme evaluation. Emelda’s current work aims to understand determinants of health transitions and vulnerabilities at fine scales, evaluate healthcare access and work to develop the science around using routine health information across Africa and to embed the use of evidence for country level decision-making. 

Before her current position, Emelda was a Program Officer/Gates Fellow within the Global Health Team at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She has previously worked on projects that have evaluated the public health impact of malaria control and antiretroviral treatment programmes while at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation-IHME, and on developing primary health care strategies at Philips Research Africa. 

Emelda serves on the BMC Medicine Editorial Board and has a special interest in science mentorship and capacity building within Africa. She has a PhD in Epidemiology, has been awarded two internationally competitive Wellcome Trust (UK) Fellowships and is widely published. 

Emelda’s major contributions to the TDR STAC will be in the following four areas, based on her previous work experience: 

• Review the strategy, scope and content of TDR in the area of tropical diseases;
• Provide technical advice on evaluation of research projects, with particular focus on public health and health systems research projects;
• Make recommendations on gender-related activities, with particular focus on Africa; and
• Provide technical advice for capacity strengthening projects in Africa.