About us

Edwine is the director of the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme, Nairobi, Kenya and also heads the Programme’s Health Economics Research Unit (HERU). Edwine is also a visiting Professor of Health Economics at the University of Oxford. Edwine’s research interests include health financing; equity and efficiency analysis in healthcare; economic evaluation of healthcare interventions; measuring health systems' performance; and health system governance. Edwine has several years of experience of practice, advisory, and conducting health economics and financing research in Kenya and in the broader Sub-Saharan African region. He provides health financing advisory to the Kenya Ministry of Health with his latest roles including appointments by the Minister of Health to the taskforce on COVID-19 vaccines deployment, the taskforce for the reform of the National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) and Kenya Health Benefits Advisory Panel. He also provides health financing technical advisory support to several international development organizations, including the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), focusing on the broader Sub-Saharan African region including Kenya, Ghana, Somalia, Malawi, Madagascar, Uganda, Rwanda, Sudan, South Sudan, Mozambique, and Egypt. His latest regional appointment include as the co-chair of the advisory board of the Africa CDC’s Health Economic Unit, and co-chair of the Africa Universal Health Coverage commission. Edwine has a PhD in health economics (University of Cape Town), a masters degree in health economics (University of Cape Town), and a bachelors degree in Pharmacy (University of Nairobi).

Dr. Julie Jemutai has a background in Economics and Mathematics and a PhD in health economics from The Open University, UK. Her PhD topic was “Efficiency Measurement in Kenyan Hospitals using Frontier Analysis Methods”’. Her research interests are in economic evaluation, efficiency measurement, statistical modelling and data science. Her current focus is assessing the costs and cost effectiveness analysis of antibiotics treatment for children with severe acute malnutrition (SAM) in 4 sites in Kenya and Uganda. Julie is the analysis lead for socio-economic, household and maternal mental health data in an observational cohort study following SAM children in 9 sites in Africa and Asia.

Vincent is a Post-Doctoral Researcher at HERU. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Statistics from the University of Nairobi, an MSc in Community Health from the Great Lakes University, and a PhD in health economics from Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM), in the United Kingdom. He has skills in bio-statistics, mathematical modelling, health systems and policy research, economic evaluations and costing, computing and programming. He served as principal investigator of several health economics and epidemiological protocols at the KEMRI Center for Global Health Research in Kisumu. He also worked as s statistician at KEMRI CGHR for 7 years, Health economist for 4 years and previously as a Data Analyst at the International livestock Research Institute(ILRI). Vincent has received extensive trainings in economic evaluations including assessing cost effectiveness , efficiency and equity effects of malaria control interventions such as RTS,S vaccine, Long Lasting Insecticide Nets (LLINs) and Intermittent Preventive Treatment for Malaria in Pregnancy (IPTp). He has evaluated economic impacts of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) to households, cost-effectiveness of animal food supplements on nutritional outcomes , cost-effectiveness of SMS reminders to improve voluntary Medical Male Circumcision and cost-effectiveness of infrastructure improvement on quality of life for surgical patients in Nicaragua. Recent published work include assessing socioeconomic inequalities, equity effect and economic burden of malaria infection in western Kenya. He has interests in health systems and policy research and evaluation of universal health coverage in various settings. He is a mentor and also serves in the KEMRI scientific and ethics Research Unit as a reviewer. Vincent has lectured in local universities and has provided mentorship for post graduates students

Jacinta is a health systems and policy researcher at HERU. She holds a PHD in Health and Social Studies (University of Warwick) and a Masters degree in global health (Oxford University). She is also adjunct faculty with the department of Public Health, Pwani University and the Institute of Healthcare Management at Strathmore University, Kenya and visiting lecturer with Oxford University, UK. Jacinta’s research work has mainly been in health worker behavior change, organizational change in hospitals and supporting leadership development for healthcare managers. Her research interests are in Health System Leadership; Health Policy Analysis & policy engagement; Organizational Behaviour & whole system change with particular interests in the management, governance and performance of human resources for health. Jacinta is now the National Platform Manager for a newly funded African Health Observatory Platform on Health Systems and Policy (AHOP) that aims at synthesizing existing research and generating new evidence on health systems performance to guide policy development and evidence-informed decision making within the health system.

Peter is an Early Career Research Fellow at HERU. He has over ten years of experience in HIV research, with interest in epidemiology, clinical trials, and implementation sciences. He is currently leading a study that aims to create a better understanding of the policy environment surrounding pharmacy-based HIV prevention, including an evaluation of the HIV self-testing and pre-exposure prophylaxis policies. He has Bachelor of Pharmacy degree, a Master’s in clinical trials and a PhD in public health. Before joining the programme, Peter was a quality assurance pharmacist at the Kenya Medical Supplies Agency.

Peter is a PHD fellow at HERU. He is a pharmacist and a health economist and currently pursuing his PhD studies examining the extent and disparities in effective coverage of health services in Kenya using a mixed methods approach. He has also been involved in costing health services and assessing the impoverishing effect of selected models of service delivery. Peter has an excellent grasp of econometric analysis and modelling using large household and facility level survey datasets.

Rahab is a PhD fellow at HERU. She a health economist with 9 years of experience in health policy research and practice in Kenya. She holds a Masters degree in Health Systems from the University of Cape Town, and a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery degree from the University of Nairobi, and is currently pursuing a PhD in health economics at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Her research to-date has focused on strategic purchasing towards universal health coverage; exploring the effects of multiple funding flows on provider behaviour; investigating the equity effects of health financing reforms and, examining the efficiency of health systems. She is currently examining priority-setting in healthcare at the national level in Kenya.

Stacey is a PhD fellow at HERU. Stacey’s research interests and experience focus on economic evaluations and the economics of health systems. Her current project includes a process evaluation of the implementation of the Linda Mama free maternity programme in selected counties in Kenya, as well as the resource tracking of resources in selected counties of Kenya. Stacey has also been involved in a cost analysis study to determine the unit costs of comprehensive TB care in Kenya from a providers’ perspective, as well as a cost analysis of a school-based intervention to prevent sexual assault among girls aged 10 to 13 in urban informal settlements in Nairobi, Kenya. Stacey holds a Masters of Public Health-specialising in Health Economics from the University of Cape Town and a Bachelor of Pharmacy Degree from the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, South Africa.

Melvin is a PhD fellow and choice modeller using stated and revealed preference methods to improve health systems in Kenya and Sub-Saharan Africa. He is interested in modelling individual and group choices, interactive agency choice experiments, minimum information group inference, multi-criteria decision analysis, health econometrics, and behavioural economics.

Jacob is a PhD fellow at the health economics research unit at the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Nairobi programme. He holds a bachelor’s degree in environmental science from Karatina University, Kenya, a postgraduate diploma in health research methods from Pwani University, Kenya, and a master’s degree in public health (Health Economics) from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK. Jacob’s current interests and research work focuses on health financing, equity analysis in healthcare, economic evaluation of healthcare interventions, the economics of sex work and using stated and revealed preference methods to improve health systems in Kenya and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Evelyn is a PhD fellow at the Health Economics Research Unit and she joined the programme in January 2017. She has keen interests in health policy, health equity and health financing. She is currently working on a project that aims to explore informal payments (petty corruption) for healthcare in Kenya. Evelyn has previously conducted research on experiences of the poor with health financing reforms that target them and how institutional design and organizational practice influence equity and pro-poorness of these reforms. The latter project also entailed exploring how gender, disability and poverty intersect to influence peoples experience with health financing reforms. Evelyn has a bachelor’s degree in nursing from the University of Nairobi, a post graduate diploma in project management from the Kenya Institute of Management and a Master of Public Health (health economics) from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Anita is a a PhD fellow at the Health Economics Research Unit. Her current work is on Examining the level and variation in the efficiency of county health systems in Kenya. Her other interests are in costing, economic evaluations, expenditure tracking and quality of healthcare. Anita has over 5years working experience as a nurse and a health systems researcher. Before joining the programme, she worked as a Research Officer at Strathmore University on a study to strengthen healthcare professional regulation in Kenya and Uganda. She has also advised various development partners and government entities on Costing of healthcare services in Kenya, efficiency of healthcare services, health insurance, expenditure tracking, market structure changes in healthcare and public private partnerships. Anita has a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from University of Nairobi and a Master of Science in Health Economic and Policy from the same university.

Fatuma joined the Programme in 2019 as a Knowledge Translation Officer. She is part of a team that supports the programme on its efforts in promoting evidence-informed decision making by policy makers and other stakeholders in the Health sector. Fatuma is passionate about closing the gap between knowledge and practice and hopes that better utilization of knowledge/evidence will improve health outcomes in Kenya. Her background is in Molecular Biology and Immunology and has prior experience in Malaria and HIV-1 research. Fatuma holds a bachelor’s degree in Biotechnology from UCSI University in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and a master’s degree in Clinical Science and Immunology from the University of Cape Town, South Africa.

Dennis is a health policy and systems researcher in the Health Economics and Research Unit (HERU). His current research work focuses on analysing the politics behind the implementation of a performance based financing scheme in marginalised counties in Kenya. Prior to this, he worked on a project on how to nurture health systems resilience at the county level in Kenya. His interests are in health financing, priority setting, health equity, politics of health systems, health system resilience and responsiveness. Dennis has a bachelor’s degree in nursing from the University of Nairobi, and a masters degree in health policy and systems at the University of Cape Town (UCT) in South Africa. He also holds a postgraduate diploma in health research methods from Pwani University.

Angela Kairu is a research officer within the Health Economics Research Unit at KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme Nairobi, Kenya. She has previously served as a medical doctor within the public and private health sectors in Kenya. In addition, she briefly worked on research projects within the Health Economics Unit at the University of Cape Town. Angela holds a Master of Public Health – Health Economics from University of Cape Town in South Africa, Master of Business Administration- Health Management & Leadership from United States International University in Kenya, and a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery from Kampala International University in Uganda. Her current work includes a cost analysis of the delivery of tuberculosis services, from a health systems’ perspective within Kenya, a process evaluation of the free maternity programme in Kenya, and health resource tracking within Kenyan counties and health facilities. Her expertise is in economic evaluation of healthcare interventions/programs, health care financing and health systems and policy research. Her broad work interests are in improving resource use and health system functioning to contribute towards evidenced based health financing strategies and solutions.

Robinson is a research officer at HERU. His research interests include economics of non-communicable diseases, economic evaluation of healthcare interventions, healthcare financing, and health policy and systems research. Robinson has a Bachelors of science degree in environmental health from Kenyatta University, and a masters degree in health economics from the University of Cape Town, South Africa.

Lizah is a research officer at HERU where she is currently examining the efficiency of county health systems in Kenya. She is health economist with seven years of health systems experience in Kenya. Before joining HERU, Lizah served in various capacities within the devolved health system including leadership in health financing, quality improvement, human resource capacity building, and service delivery. Starting in clinical service delivery and later a medical superintendent of a level IV hospital, she progressed to become a leader in development, implementation and evaluation of various programs. She has a background in dental surgery having pursued a Bachelor of Dental Surgery at the University of Nairobi and later an MSc. Health Economics and Policy from the University of Nairobi.

Rebecca is an Assistant Research officer with an interest in applying statistical methods in economic evaluations of health interventions. She has a degree in Applied Statistics and a post-graduate diploma in Health Research Methods (IDeAL studentship). Her background is in Applied Statistics. Her current focus is in economic evaluation of treatments for severely malnourished children as part of the FLACSAM (First Line Antimicrobials in Children with Complicated Severe Acute Malnutrition) Trial. This work aims to assess the cost-effectiveness of antibiotics administered to severely acute malnourished children.

Audrey holds a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy from the University of Nairobi and a Post Graduate Diploma in Health Research Methods from Pwani university. She is currently a Wellcome Trust international Masters fellow, pursing an Msc in Health Economics at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). Her current research work is on the role of community pharmacies in responding to public health challenges, with a focus on the COVID- 19 pandemic and HIV prevention policies. Her research interests are on health financing, health system strengthening, public and private health sector collaborations, health policy design, analysis and implementation.

Judith is the Senior Executive Assistant at HERU. He roles include administration and project management at HERU. She has over 10 years of work experience in project management, human resource management, administration, quality management, research, data management, marketing, website design/management and operations. She has a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Kenya Methodist University (KeMU) and Master of Science in Project Management from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT). She also has certificates in Project Management in Global Health and Leadership and Management in Health from University of Washington.