training
Meet The Trainees


Ernest Yamie Moya
While anaemia has been studied extensively in pregnant women, little attention has been given to the same condition during the postpartum period. In LMICs, data is lacking on the magnitude of anaemia, iron deficiency, and iron deficiency anaemia and how these conditions affect maternal wellbeing during the postpartum period. This has led to knowledge gap on optimal dose, schedule and duration of iron supplementation during the postpartum period to the benefit of both the mother and the infant. Unless there are clear guidelines informed by quality evidence from LMICs, where anaemia and iron deficient is projected to be highly prevalent, the global nutrition target of halving the prevalence of anaemia in women of reproductive age (WRA) by the year 2025, will remain a pipeline dream.
Ernest is a PhD Fellow at TRUE registered with Kamuzu University of Health Science, formally Collage of Medicine, Public Health Department. He tactically embedded his PhD project in REVAMP group of studies. His PhD project follows up women immediately after childbirth to determine the extent of iron deficiency and anemia and how these conditions affect maternal physical and psychological wellbeing, and bonding in the first 6 months postpartum. Ernest believes his study findings will inform public health practitioners and policy makers to come up with appropriate interventions.
Ernest is also a PhD Fellow at a Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa (CARTA), cohort 9 and a fellow at the Emerging Voice for Global Health (EV4GH).

Elisabeth Mamani-Mategula
Elisabeth Mamani-Mategula is a Ph.D. Research Fellow in Health and Social Science at the Training and Research Unit of Excellence (TRUE) under the Randomised controlled trial of the Effect of intravenous iron on Anaemia in Malawian Pregnant women-Implementation Science (REVAMP-IS) component. She has a BSc in Food and Nutrition from the University of Malawi, (Chancellor College) and an MSc in Global Health Implementation from the Kamuzu University of Health Sciences (College of Medicine). Currently, Elisabeth is doing her PhD at Kamuzu University of Health Sciences.
Applying her qualitative research skills, Elisabeth’s passion is to contribute to child and maternal health well-being through conducting implementation science research and teaching. Her PhD research topic is “An evaluation of the feasibility and acceptability of implementing intravenous iron therapy to treat anaemia in pregnant women in Zomba district, Malawi.” In this, she is exploring the factors influencing the approachability, acceptability, availability and accommodation, feasibility, and appropriateness of implementing IV iron intervention from the provider’s perspective whilst understanding the pregnant women’s ability to perceive, seek, reach, and engage for IV iron access to treat anaemia in pregnancy in Malawi. Suppose the use of IV iron during pregnancy would be effective in Malawi, her study will ultimately provide the basis for knowledge to policymakers and healthcare workers and promote evidence-based decision-making guide towards the use of IV iron and possibly change how we treat and manage anaemic pregnant women to improve maternal and child health outcomes.

Myness Ndambo
Myness is a PhD Fellow-Social Science at the Training and Research Unit of Excellence (TRUE) through the Kamuzu University of Health Sciences (KUHEs) previously known as the University of Malawi, College of Medicine. She holds a Master of Public Health from KUHEs. She also holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Education from Mzuzu University majoring in Biology and minoring in Statistics. Myness has 6 years of experience working as a Social Scientist. Over the years, she has worked with the Malawi Epidemiology and Intervention Research Unit (MEIRU), College of Medicine, and Partners In Health researching Public Health challenges affecting the rural population in Malawi. Her PhD research is on exploring demand and supply side determinants to the Post-discharge malaria chemoprevention (PMC) implementation to reduce child mortality and morbidity among children with severe malaria. Her passion is in contributing to finding ways of improving health delivery for the rural poor and vulnerable populations so as to assist them to realize their development goals.

Dr. Tinashe Tizifa
Tinashe Tizifa is a PhD candidate in Clinical Epidemiology at the University of Amsterdam, University Medical Centers (UvA-UMC) and a Research Fellow at the Training and Research Unit of Excellence (TRUE) in Blantyre, Malawi. Built upon his interest in implementation science, infectious diseases, and community work his topic focuses on the effect of community participation on the implementation of novel malaria control strategies, malaria burden, and surveillance in rural communities of Chikwawa, southern Malawi. He was the coordinator of The Majete Malaria Project, which also housed his PhD. Tinashe graduated from the University of Malawi as a medical doctor and started his medical career in 2012. He has worked with the Ministry of Health and the College of Medicine in Malawi.
He also has a keen interest in health systems strengthening and policy debates on the issues that shape health outcomes among individuals residing in rural communities within Sub-Saharan Africa.

William Nkhono
William Yankho Nkhono is a research fellow pursuing a PhD in data science. He is a PhD research fellow under the IMPALA project and has enrolled as a PhD student in big data and machine learning with the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Department of Computer Sciences in the Netherlands. His work is mainly focused on developing algorithms to predict critical illness in Malawian children using social demographic, continuous vital signs monitoring and biomarkers and applying machine learning to detect, train, and test predictive algorithms. He holds an MSc in Informatics from the University of Malawi and a BSc (honours) in Business Information technology from the University of Greenwich.

Chimwemwe Kana
Chimwemwe is a PhD Fellow-Epidemiology at the Training and Research Unit of Excellence (TRUE) through University of Bergen, Norway. Has Master of Science in Epidemiology from, University of Malawi, College of Medicine. Over the years, she has worked with Malawi Ministry of Heath as a Clinical Associate and Non-Governmental Organizations focusing on Malaria prevention in pregnant women and under-five children, and HIV prevention (HIV Testing Services and VMMC). Her PhD research is in the Post-discharge malaria chemoprevention (PMC) consortium, looking at new and existing interventions for management of malaria infection in under-five children.
Chimwemwe is a determined researcher with self-drive and quest for success. Married to Blessings Kana with four children.

Maclean Vokhiwa
Maclean Vokhiwa is a PhD Fellow active in neurodevelopmental research. He studies with the Kamuzu University of Health Sciences, in Malawi and completed support program for PhD students at North-West University, Faculty of Health Sciences in South Africa (2022). He receives supervision from KUHeS and University of Nottingham, UK. He holds a Master of Public Health from the College of Medicine and a bachelor’s degree focusing on Psychology and Philosophy from the University of Malawi. Maclean’s profile of trainings includes Research Ethics, Human Subjects Protection, Good Clinical Practice, and Clinical research methods.
Maclean’s research interests are in child neurodevelopment and educational outcomes assessment aiming to clarify the links between these outcomes among developmentally at-risk children. Such clarity contributes to global and public health policies by delivering direct recommendations that help to avert avoidable effects of disability, prioritization of special educational provisions and resources for mainstream learning especially in low resource settings. He is team leader for the BICO study.

Glory Mzembe
Glory Mzembe is a PhD Fellow under the Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa (CARTA) and registered with the Kamuzu University of Health Sciences, Malawi. Her PhD work is focused on assessing the impact of pregnancy interventions on early childhood clinical health outcomes. She holds a Master of Science degree in Epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine – LSHTM and a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) degree from the University of Malawi.
Through her current work in various research projects at the Training and Research Unit of Excellence (TRUE) where she embedded her PhD, Glory has amassed experience in designing, setting up and implementing large clinical trial trials and observational cohorts especially in pregnancy and children.

Daniel Mwale
Daniel Mwale is a Social Science PhD. Research Fellow under IMPALA project a clinical observational trial “Innovative Monitoring in Paediatrics in Low-resource settings: an Aid to save lives? (IMPALA).” He enrolled as a PhD student with the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands under the School of Medicine in collaboration with Kamuzu University of Health Sciences. He has a Master’s in Public Health from Kamuzu University of Health Sciences (College of Medicine) and a Bachelor’s degree in Social Science from the Catholic University of Malawi.
As a Social Science PhD. Research Fellow his research work focuses on understanding if novel technologies are feasible, appropriate, and acceptable for improving children’s health is not often adequately investigated and can compromise implementation and scaling-up efforts. His research work considers appropriate health technologies for early detection of critically ill have the potential to improve the quality of care and children’s health outcomes. His work will act as a catalyst in improving child health outcomes and influence policy change as far as critical illness care is concerned.

Lufina Tsirizani Galileya
Lufina is a pharmacometrics PhD student with a strong interest in drug dose optimization and drug development for vulnerable populations. She is registered with the University of Cape Town and her PhD work focuses on the application of nonlinear mixed-effects models to describe the pharmacokinetics (PK) and pharmacodynamics (PD) of drugs for infectious diseases in children.
Within this theme, Lufina will work for three projects:
Firstly, she aims to characterise the PK and PD of Dihydroartemisinin-Piperaquine in the CHEMCHA trial, which is a double-blind placebo controlled randomised trial evaluating the use of Dihydroartemisinin-Piperaquine or Sulphadoxine-Pyrimethamine for the Chemoprevention of Malaria in Children with Sickle Cell Anaemia in eastern and southern Africa.
Secondly, Lufina has conducted a pooled pharmacokinetic analysis to evaluate WHO paediatric tuberculosis dosing guidelines.
Finally, she is part of a project which aims to characterise the PK of second-line antiretroviral drugs in children. Lufina holds a Bachelor of Pharmacy (Hons.) and a MSc Epidemiology from Kamuzu University of Health Sciences.
She enjoys hiking and taking long walks with her husband and son.
Completed PhD Fellows

Dr Michael Chipeta
Registered: University of Leeds
Completed: 2016

Dr Alinune Kabaghe
Registered: University of Amsterdam
Completed: 2018

Dr Steve Gowelo
Registered: Wageningen University
Completed: 2020

Dr Monicah Mburu
Registered: Wageningen University
Completed: 2021

Dr Thandile Gondwe
Registered: University of Bergen
Completed: 2021

Dr Tumaini Malenga
Registered: University of Malawi
Completed: 2021