Author: Rowena Quinan

Fred Bukachi is Senior Consultant Cardiologist and Professor in Medical Physiology,  Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Nairobi (UoN). He is also the Centre Director of the ARUA Centre of Excellence for Non-Communicable Diseases  (ACENCD) and Academic Co-Lead of Africa-Europe Cluster of Research Excellence (CoRE) in NCDs and Multimorbidity. He trained in Internal Medicine at the UoN  (1995) and later in Cardiology at the Imperial College, London (1999), and Umea University in Sweden.  He holds a PhD in Cardiology (2004). Since 2015 he has participated and chaired Guideline writing Committees in Kenya and the region – developing practice guidelines  for the treatment of Hypertension, Heart Failure and Diabetes. Professor Bukachi has published extensively including a recent (2025) book Chapter: AI for Telemedicine in Africa and Beyond (Book Title: Telemedicine – Models of Care).

He also serves as a board member and advisor to many regional and international organizations working in the area of NCDs in Africa.  He is the immediate former Chair of Medical Physiology at the University of Nairobi and a pioneer of Digital Health in the East-African Region.  He is a Fellow of (1) the European Society of Cardiology (FESC), (2) the American College of Cardiology (FACC) and a Founding Fellow of East, Central and Southern Africa College of Physicians (ECSACOP).

Current Editorial appointments: (1) Regional Editor of the Cardiovascular Journal of Africa (official Journal of Pan African Society of Cardiology).  (2) Reviewer for major biomedical Journals in Cardiovascular medicine and top grant making organizations.

Current Research areas:  Hypertension, Heart failure and Cardiometabolic disease and models of care in NCDs.

Current grants: (1) Co-Principal Investigator: NIH-R1 Joint Grant with Stellenbosch University, South Africa:  HIV-associated NCD Research at Low- and Middle-Income Country Institutions – Project title -Altered mitochondrial function and HIV-associated Cardiometabolic disease in populations from South Africa and Kenya (MITOSAKen).

(2)  Principal Investigator: Caring for NCD Caregivers:  Developing a National Caregivers Policy in Kenya. Funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada.

Professor Jane Tanner undertakes both research and consulting in hydrology, specializing in the modelling and understanding of surface water and groundwater interactions. This includes improving conceptual process understanding as well as hydrological modelling of interactions. She is an expert in the application of the modified Pitman Model (modified at the IWR by Prof Denis Hughes) which integrates both surface water and groundwater. Professor Tanner’s additional research interests lie in the types of field work that support the modelling of SWGW interactions, as well as comparisons between simpler and more complex models, and their applicability in various settings.

Professor Gordon A. Awandare is the Pro Vice-Chancellor responsible for Academic and Students Affairs. He is the founding Director of West African Centre for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens (WACCBIP), and a Professor at the Department of Biochemistry, Cell and Molecular Biology (BCMB) at the University of Ghana, Legon.  He was appointed Lecturer at the Department of Biochemistry, University of Ghana in 2002, promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2011, Associate Professor in 2015 and Professor in 2018.  His research interest is in the molecular and cellular aspects of infectious diseases in Africa, with specialization in the biology of the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum, and the pathogenesis of its infections in African children.