My pronouns are she/her.
I was a PhD student at the Zoology Department of the University of Oxford, UK, where I studied the “Molecular epidemiology and ecology of Neisseria species in the African meningitis belt” under the supervision Prof. Martin Maiden. I have relocated to Africa after my defence and have now settled in Côte d’Ivoire where I work at the Swiss Center for Scientifics Research (CSRS) as a Research Associate. My main research interests are focused on improving our understanding of the environmental and genetic factors that influence the onset of bacterial meningitis to better predict and eventually prevent epidemics. I am also interested in developing molecular tools to improve infectious disease surveillance systems at the national and regional level. I joined CSRS in 2019 with a CRICK African Network- African Career Accelerator Award to conduct a study entitled “The oropharyngeal microbiome dynamics and invasive bacterial diseases” which was implemented in Côte d’Ivoire (Abidjan and Korhogo), under the mentorship of Prof Bonfoh, within a collaboration between the CSRS, the West African Centre for Cell Biology and Infectious Pathogens (WACCBIP) in Ghana and the Francis Crick institute in the UK. In 2021 I was the local lead on the Molecular Epidemiology for Vaccination Policy (MEVacP) project in collaboration with the University of Oxford. Finally, I recently received funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation Grand Challenge metagenomics to continue my work on improvement of meningitis diagnosis in Africa.
