Dr Noffisat Oki
National Institutes of Health
Dr. Oki serves as director of the Data Science, Computational Biology and Bioinformatics program within the extramural research division at the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR), of the National Institutes of Health.
Dr Samuel Iddi
Multimorbidity in Africa: Digital innovation, visualisation and application
Samuel is a research scientist specialized in biostatistics and data science, with a rich research portfolio, underpinned by cutting-edge statistical/methodological research and the application of innovative research techniques to advance public health and biomedical research. He currently works at the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC). He is a co-investigator of the MADIVA project that employs machine and deep learning to address problems related to the multimorbidity of non-communicable diseases. Samuel is the chair of the Data Management Working Group of the DS-I Africa Consortium. He is a recognized trainer in statistical software, statistical methods, data management and analysis, impact evaluation methods, etc., and has provided training workshops and mentorship for researchers and students.
Prof Nicola Mulder
eLwazi: enabling data discovery and analysis
eLwazi Open Data Science Platform
Prof Mulder heads the Computational Biology Division at UCT. She is PI of the DS-I Africa eLwazi Open Data Science Platform and co-leads a Sickle Cell Disease Data Coordinating Centre and a Wellcome Trust Discovery Data Integration Platform at UCT. She led H3ABioNet, a Pan African Bioinformatics Network which developed bioinformatics capacity to enable genomic data analysis for more than a decade. Her research focuses on genetic determinants of susceptibility to disease, African genome variation, and microbial genomics and infectious diseases. Her group provides bioinformatics services and training and develops new algorithms and resources for African genomics. Prof Mulder is actively involved in capacity development in Bioinformatics and genomics. She also sits on a number of international scientific advisory boards and is currently the interim Director for the African Bioinformatics Institute.
Dr Natasha Lalloo
HE2AT: The HarmonAIze Project: Pioneering Automated Climate and Health Data Harmonization and Integration [TBC]
Developing data science solutions to mitigate the health impacts of climate change in Africa: the HE2AT Center
Natasha Lalloo is a medical doctor from South Africa, passionate about public health, planetary health, and environmental epidemiology. She has a master of science in public health from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and has experience working in urban, rural, public and private hospital settings across South Africa, as well as experience working in clinical trials and internationally funded public health and environmental health projects. She has a wide array of professional skills and experience including statistics (coding and analysis in Stata and R), epidemiology, coding in Python, policy (briefs, reports, analysis), intervention monitoring and evaluation, designing research studies and grant proposals, GIS skills, and quantitative and qualitative research methodologies. She is currently serving as a research clinician at Wits Planetary Health Research. Her primary focus is data harmonisation, alongside other project work within the HE2AT Center, working with data from sub-Saharan Africa to answer climate and health questions. Spending much of her free time outdoors, Natasha's deep connection with nature inspired her environmentalism and transition from clinical medicine to planetary health.
Prof Benjamin Aribisala
DATICAN: Data Management and Compute Platform for Data Science Training
Data Science and Medical Image Analysis Training for Improved Health Care Delivery in Nigeria
Professor Aribisala Benjamin Segun is a Professor of Computer Science and a Fulbright Scholar. He received his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the University of Birmingham, U.K. He became a professor of computer science in 2013. He has over 30 years of work experience as an academic staff and he has served at several leadership positions in the University, such as the Head of the Department of Computer Science, the Dean of the Faculty of Science, the Director of ICT, a member of the Governing Council in Lagos State University and Vice Chancellor of Oduduwa University. He is currently the Dean of the Faculty of Computing in Lagos State University. He has worked as an academic staff in the UK, USA and Nigeria. For example, Newcastle University (England, U.K.), the University of Edinburgh (Scotland, U.K.) and The University of Chicago (Illinois, USA) as a Fulbright Visiting Professor of Computer Science. In June 2024, he was appointed by the Governor of Lagos State, His Excellency, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu as a member of the Lagos State Research and Innovation Council. His research interests cut across data science, medical image analysis, machine learning, deep learning and artificial intelligence. .
Mr Derick Imbati
UZIMA-DS: Sustainable Cloud Operations for Research and Environmental Impact (SCORE - EI)
UtiliZing health Information for Meaningful impact in East Africa through Data Science
Lead Data Engineer | UZIMA‑DS Project As Lead Data Engineer for the UZIMA‑DS project, I architect and manage the cloud infrastructure that powers one of Africa's most ambitious longitudinal health data initiatives. My work is at the intersection of engineering and science-designing pipelines that transform raw, complex healthcare datasets into reliable, accessible resources for researchers. I focus on building resilient systems that balance performance with sustainability. This includes optimizing costs across Microsoft Fabric and GCP, while ensuring scalability for the growing demands of UZIMA's data science mission. Beyond infrastructure, I lead a cross‑functional team of engineers and scientists within the CDIO group, coordinating updates, refining workflows, and embedding security and governance into every layer of our environment. By bridging technical architecture with research needs, I help deliver high‑quality data products that directly support UZIMA's vision: harnessing data science to improve health outcomes across diverse populations.
Dr William Wasswa
MUDSReH: MUST Data Science Research Hub
MUST Data Science Research Hub
Dr Wasswa William is a Biomedical Engineer and Bioinformatics expert from Mbarara University of Science and Technology. He is a senior lecturer and head of Department of Biomedical Sciences and Engineering.
Mr Frank Ouma
Dedan Kimathi University of Technology
I am a systems architect and technical project lead specializing in embedded systems, power electronics, FPGA platforms, and AI-enabled applications. I design and deliver end-to-end solutions—from system architecture and simulation to hardware validation and production deployment—integrating hardware, software, and data into cohesive, high-performance products. I combine deep technical execution with disciplined project leadership to achieve reliable, scalable, and measurable results.
Ms Sharon Tonui
UtiliZing health Information for Meaningful impact in East Africa through Data Science
I am a Data Scientist with five years of experience building AI and data-driven solutions across healthcare, finance, and international development. I currently work at The Aga Khan University Data Innovation Office, where I develop LLM-powered decision support tools. Currently working on the DSI-A chatbot, designed to help research administrators and principal investigators retrieve NIH grant guidance quickly and reliably. The system indexes content from across the NIH grants ecosystem. Rather than searching multiple sites and interpreting dense policy language manually, users ask a question and receive a sourced, auditable answer.