Dr Rosalind Parkes-Ratanshi

Head of Hub and Consortium Principal Investigator

Dr Rosalind Parkes-Ratanshi is a Principal Research Associate (Professor equivalent) at University of Cambridge UK, as well as holding at joint appointment as the Head of Research and Development at The Ugandan Academy for Health Innovations, based at Infectious Diseases Institute, Makerere University, Uganda. She is a clinically trained academic who has worked in Uganda since performing a PhD on Cryptococcal Meningitis in PLHIV in 2004-9. Her research interests include technologies for health systems strengthening for HIV and sexually transmitted infections. She is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Faculty of Public Health of London, UK.

Assoc. Prof. Engineer Bainomugisha

Consortium Principal Investigator

Engineer Bainomugisha is an Associate Professor and Chair of Computer Science at Makerere University. He currently leads innovative research initiatives that aim to create and apply computational methods and tools to address prevailing world challenges. His ongoing and previous research initiatives include AirQo, Crane Cloud, COAST, iScheme, Sunbird AI, and Flute, among others. He is also actively involved in pioneering Computer Science education that is of sufficient breadth and depth, practical and fast enough for the African continent. He has published widely international peer-reviewed journals and conferences and supervised over 30 graduate students (completed and ongoing) including postdocs, PhD, and Masters from Computer Science, Software Engineering and Health Informatics. More at https://ibaino.net

Dr Ernest Mwebaze

Consortium Principal Investigator, Theme Lead in Sexually Transmitted Infections AI.

Ernest Mwebaze has had a dual career in academia and in industry. He possesses over 10 years of teaching experience in computer science and machine learning. While at Makerere University he co-found- ed the Makerere University Artificial Intelligence research lab leading it to prominence in the field of practical implementation and deployment of artificial intelligence solutions. In industry he has worked at the Google AI research lab in Ghana and the UN Pulse lab in Kampala where he focused on practical applications of artificial intelligence to tackle developmental challenges in agriculture, utility estimation and different focus areas of the SDGs. He is passionate about using artificial intelligence to improve society particularly in developing parts of the world. He is currently a founding director of Sunbird AI.

Prof. Annettee Nakimuli

Theme Lead – Maternal Health

Annettee Nakimuli is Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and the Dean of the School of Medicine at Makerere University, in Uganda. She is a previous Chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Makerere University and a leading maternal health researcher and also clinically active as an obstetrician. Her clinical expertise is high risk obstetrics and works at Mulago Specialized Womens and Neonatal Hospital and Kawempe National Referral Hospital. Annettee trained as a medical doctor at Makerere University, Kampala and then underwent specialist training in Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the same University. Her PhD on pre-eclampsia was undertaken with mentorship from Professor Ashley Moffett in the University of Cambridge, Professor Florence Mirembe at Makerere University, Professor Pontiano Kaleebu at the Medical Research Centre (MRC) in Uganda and Professor Alison Elliott at the MRC in Uganda/London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Prof Nakimuli’s research group’s primary research interest is pre-eclampsia, a major cause of maternal morbidity and mortality in sub-Saharan Africa. In particular, the group is interested in identifying genetic and other risk factors for pre-eclampsia in order to improve pregnancy outcomes. Her group is also interested in functional characterization of other pregnancy complications common in Ugandan women such as fetal growth restriction, preterm birth, intrauterine fetal death and pathogen infections during pregnancy. These studies aim at development of tools that will improve prediction, management and prevention of these pregnancy complications. Annettee is currently a recipient of the Calestous Juma Science Leadership Award by the Bills and Melinda Gates Foundation. She is an International Fellow at Wellcome Sanger Institute in the UK and also a FLAIR Fellow (Future Leaders-African Independent Research fellow) under the Royal Society and African Academy of Sciences. Prof Nakimuli serves on several national and international committees, including the National Safemotherhood Expert Committee (NASMEC). She also sits on various International grant review/funding committees. She currently serves as the President of the East Central and Southern Africa College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (ECSACOG) which was established in 2017. Annettee is committed to building maternal and newborn research capacity in Africa, working with African and International colleagues.

Dr Rachel King

Theme Lead – Adolescents (Vulnerable Populations)

Rachel King is a faculty member in the Institute for Global Health Sciences within the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco. She has formal training in public health behavioral sciences and anthropology as well as over 30 years of international public health experience with expertise in HIV research and programming. She has extensive experience using qualitative and quantitative research and evaluation methods, including design and implementation of process evaluations, and social, behavioral, and longitudinal cohort studies among diverse highly vulnerable populations in Uganda.

Dr Joyce Nakatumba-Nabende

Theme Lead – Vulnerable Populations, Artificial Intelligence

Joyce Nakatumba-Nabende (PhD) is a lecturer in the Department of Computer Science and also heads the Makerere Artificial Intelligence Lab. Her research interests are in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing and Responsible AI. Currently, she is carrying out research in several areas including application of computer vision, machine learning and natural language processing in the areas of health and agriculture in the developing world. Through the Makerere Artificial Intelligence lab, she has been able to provide an environment to nurture and build institutional data science research training capacity for the masters, PhD and postdoc researchers. She has supervised over 20 graduate students (completed and ongoing) including postdocs, PhD, and Masters from Computer Science, Software Engineering and Information systems.

Dr Agnes Kiragga

Theme Lead -Sexually Transmitted Infections

Agnes Kiragga is a Research Scientist and Technical Lead Data Science at the African Population Health Research Council in Nairobi, Kenya. She previously worked as the Head of Statistics and data management at the Infectious Diseases Institute, College of Health Sciences at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda. She has a PhD in applied statistics from Makerere University and a Post-Doctoral certificate from a fellowship at the Johns Hopkins University, USA. She is current chair for the Representative Council of the International Biometric Society and is dedicated to mentorship and expansion of analytical capacity in Africa. She has over 15 years’ experience handling large, complex, diverse heterogenous and non-conventional data including longitudinal population cohorts, social media data, cross-sectional datasets, survey datasets that are collated from Africa and through international collaborations. Her interest lies in the development of Common Data Models (CDMs) that support data sharing and application of artificial intelligence and data science techniques to improve global health and livelihood in Africa and beyond.

Dr Daudi Jjingo

Theme Lead – HIV Platforms

Dr. Daudi Jjingo is a Principal Investigator of the NIH/Fogarty Bioinformatics training grant in Uganda and Co-Principal Investigator of the Ugandan H3BioNet node. He serves as the Director of the African Center of Excellence (ACE) in bioinformatics and data science, whose mandate involves providing cutting-edge computational platforms for biomedical research. Dr. Jjingo is a Scientist and Lecturer in the department of Computer Science at Makerere University, where he is also a member of the Artificial Intelligence laboratory (AI-lab). He earned his PhD in Bioinformatics as a Fulbright Scholar at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta USA, preceded by an MSc in Bioinformatics from the University of Leeds, UK and a BSc in Biochemistry from Makerere University, Uganda. His research interests broadly lie in the application of computational tools and methods on biomedical and public health problems.

Dr John Quinn

Theme Lead – HIV, Artificial Intelligence

John Quinn has been working in Artificial Intelligence for nearly twenty years, and within Africa since joining Makerere University as a lecturer in 2007. As well as being one of the Directors of Sunbird AI, he is also a Senior Software Engineer at Google Ghana, where he currently leads a team that processes satellite imagery across the continent to add buildings and roads to Google Maps. He was previously the technical lead of Pulse Lab Kampala, where he worked on language technology for analysing community radio as the basis of a UN early warning system, among other projects.