Current Students

Bained Nyirongo

Bained is a PhD Fellow at the University of Zambia, Department of Educational Psychology, Sociology and Special Education in the School of Education. He is supervised by Professor Beatrice Matafwali and Dr Magdalene Simalalo. His Project focuses on Early intervention in Autism by establishing inhibitory control skills in school aged children in Zambia. With this project, he hopes to establish and improve inhibitory control abilities in autistic children through culturally cognitive remediation therapies in a Zambian setting.

Beatrice Oloo

Beatrice is a PhD Fellow at the University of Zambia, within the Department of Psychiatry at the School of Medicine. Under the guidance of Dr. Paul Ravi and Professor Beatrice Matafwali, her research project centers on adopting early intervention strategies for dyslexia. This comparative study examines the current management of dyslexia in urban and rural schools across Zambia.

Her goal is to implement early interventions that alleviate the difficulties children with dyslexia face in reading, writing, and speaking. By addressing these challenges early on, she aims to empower these children to reach their full potential and transform their educational experiences.

Cleo Albertus

Cleo is currently a PhD fellow at the University of Cape Town, Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health and Neuroscience Institute, Faculty of Health Sciences, under the supervision of Dr. Nynke Groenewold, Associate Professor Goodman, and Professor Dan Stein. Her project focuses on the cognitive determinants of problematic substance use in South African adolescents with and without comorbid emotional disorders. Substance use disorders are highly prevalent and significantly contribute to the burden of disease in South Africa and on the African continent. The aim of her PhD project is to investigate the cognitive determinants associated with problematic substance use among South African adolescents in the Cape Town metro area. With this project, she hopes to gain a better understanding of adolescent substance use and its impact on neurocognitive development and academic achievements.

Daisy Chelangat

Daisy is a PhD fellow at the Institute of Human Development supporting the UtiliZe health Information for Meaningful impact in East Africa through Data Science (UZIMA-DS) Program. She is being supervised by Professor Amina Abubakar and Professor Charles Newton. She has over five years of experience in research, with a strong background in statistics. She’s focused on giving data a voice by turning it into actionable insights using robust statistical analysis methods and disseminating results in a language that can be understood by a seven-year-old. She is interested in the validation of assessments used in autism screening and diagnosis, risk factors and the genetic and phenotypic architecture neurodevelopmental disabilities.

Easter Olwanda

Ms. Easter is a PhD fellow at the Aga khan University, Institute for Human Development under the supervision of Professor Amina Abubakar and Professor Marit Sijbrandij. Easter’s PhD project focusses on the Integration of Adolescent Mental Health Literacy Programs/Interventions into School Services for Adolescents in Kenya. The project aims to create a framework for the integration of adolescent mental health literacy programs in school services in Kenya. This initiative seeks to enhance overall mental health awareness, reduce stigma related to mental health, and foster a more supportive environment within schools and communities for adolescents encountering mental health challenges. Furthermore, the project seeks to carry out a cost-benefit analysis to determine the total costs of integrating adolescent mental health literacy/interventions in school services, as well as assess economic impacts such as healthy life years gained, mortality rates averted, and productivity enhancements through this intervention.

Emmie Mbale

Emmie Mbale is a paediatrician and Senior lecturer at Kamuzu University of Health Sciences, Malawi. She recently enrolled in a PhD program in the department of Paediatrics and Child Health under the supervision of Prof MacPherson Mallewa and Prof Melissa Gladstone. 

In her PhD she aims to understand the trajectory of child development in the first 24 months of life and the factors that influence it. She will be tracking child development using neuroimaging, developmental assessment tools and will explore the impact of nutrition and maternal stressors in a cohort of children.

She hopes that this research can inform the development and timing of future interventions to optimize child development.

Ezra Too

Ezra is a PhD fellow at the Institute of Human Development, under the supervision of Professor Amina Abubakar. His project focuses on adolescent executive function and mental health in the context of HIV. With this project, he aims to explore the impact of perinatal HIV (both infection and exposure without infection) on executive functioning among Kenyan adolescents, and its association with mental health.

Heesoo Diara

Ms. Heesoo is currently pursuing a PhD in Paediatric Neuroscience under the supervision of Professor Kirsty Donald at the University of Cape Town (UCT) in South Africa. She has a Maters in Clinical Neuropsychology. Her PhD project is nested within the Khula Study and aims to investigate early life development of executive functions (EF). With this project she aims to not only understand the emergence of brain networks underlying executive function development in early life, but also to understand the influence and impact of socio-environmental influences on early Executive Functions development.

Joan Mutahi

Joan is a PhD fellow enrolled at the Institute of Human Development program, under the supervision of Professor Amina Abubakar. Her project aims to understand the neurocognitive and behavioural outcomes of adolescents living with Sickle Cell Disease in Kenya, to inform the adaptation of a brief psychological intervention for them and their caregivers. With this research, she hopes to apply previously contextually validated neurocognitive and behavioural measures in assessment. The work will also evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of a chosen psychological intervention.

Maclean Vokhiwa

Maclean is enrolled in a PhD program in Paediatrics and Child Health at the Kamuzu University of Health Sciences (KUHeS), Malawi. He is studying under the supervision of Professors Eric Umar (Malawi), Kamija Phiri (Malawi), Lauren Cohee (UK) and Nicola Pitchford (UK). Maclean’s research interests are in measuring brain growth, cognition and learning outcomes among early years of children at risk of poor development, including anaemia, in Sub-Saharan Africa. He uses ultra-low-field Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), electroencephalogram (EEG), neurocognitive, learning, and disability measures. He hopes to contribute towards filling the gap of understanding brain development, using accessible technologies, in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Marilyn Lake

Marilyn is a PhD fellow based at University of Cape Town, Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health. Her PhD is nested within the Drakenstein Child Health Study (DCHS). Under the supervision of Professor Dan Stein and Ass. Professor Anke Huels, Marilyn will explore how exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) during critical and sensitive developmental periods may impact child behaviour and mental health. She aims to leverage longitudinal data across childhood to map ETS patterns linked to child psychopathology, in addition to integrating both psychosocial and epigenetic data to investigate potential mechanistic pathways.

Shekinah Munthali

Shekinah is a Nutritionist and currently enrolled in a PhD program in Paediatrics and Child Health Care at the Kamuzu University of Health Sciences in Malawi, under the supervision of Dr. Kondwani Katundu and Associate Professor Alexander Kalimbira. Her research focuses on the relationship between gestational and childhood malnutrition and mental health/cognitive function in rural Malawian adolescents. Through this project, she hopes to better understand how early-life nutritional deficits impact cognitive outcomes and mental health during adolescence.

Thelma Banda

Thelma is a PhD student at the University of Zambia in the school of Education, Department of Educational Psychology, Sociology and Special Education, under the supervision of Professor Beatrice Matafwali and Dr Magdalene Simalalo. 

Her project focuses on exploring support of the Home Literacy Environment for children with dyslexia in Primary Schools in Zambia. With this project she hopes to describe the Home Literacy Environment in the Zambian context and how it can support children with dyslexia to acquire and improve literacy skills.

Tracy Arendse

Tracy is a PhD fellow in the Paediatric Neurosurgery at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, under the supervision of Associate Professor Ursula Rohlwink. Her project focuses on brain injury in children caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The project will be focusing on outcomes, biomarkers (blood and radiologic) and transcriptomics. With this project she hopes to describe the outcomes in children with tuberculous meningitis, examine the association between blood biomarkers and imaging biomarkers to potentially detect brain damage early and to explore potential mechanisms of brain injury that contribute to poor outcome in children with  tubercular meningitis.

Zethembiso Ngcobo

Ngcobo is a PhD student in the Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health and Neuroscience Institute at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Her research project is being supervised by Associate Professor Pieter Naudé, and Professor Kirsty Donald. Her project will be investigating the impact of environmental exposures on early-life neuroinflammation and neurodevelopment in African children. With her project, she aims to investigate how environmental exposures can influence neuroinflammation and in turn, shape neurodevelopmental outcomes in African communities. The findings from this study hold potential to identify mechanisms that can help identify children who are most susceptible to poor neurodevelopmental outcomes in African communities.