Dr. Patrick Pithua awarded a fellowship by the Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program to travel to Uganda to work with Makerere University
Dr. Patrick Pithua Odongo from Virginia Tech was awarded a fellowship by the Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program to travel to Uganda to work with Makerere University and Dr. Lawrence Mugisha on Collaborative Research in Strengthening Research in Infectious Diseases. The long-term goal of this collaboration is to better understand the factors leading to emergence and persistence of zoonotic pathogens under contemporary epidemiologic conditions in Uganda and to develop novel intervention for reducing the negative public and animal health impact of these diseases.
Activities will include among others developing and teaching an intensive course of study that will (a) introduce students to the basic ideas and methods that underpin clinical or diagnostic epidemiology, (b) provide students with key statistical tools and skills required to analyze and interpret data from common veterinary epidemiological studies, and (c) provide students with a systematic guide to the practical stages involved in the planning and conduct of a diagnostic validation study.
The Makerere University project is one of 74 projects that will pair African Diaspora scholars with higher education institutions and collaborators in Africa to work together on curriculum co-development, collaborative research, graduate training and mentoring activities in the coming months.
The Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program, now in its fourth year, is designed to reverse Africa’s brain drain, strengthen capacity at the host institutions, and develop long-term, mutually beneficial collaborations between universities in Africa and the United States and Canada. It is funded by Carnegie Corporation of New York and managed by the Institute of International Education (IIE) in collaboration with United States International University-Africa (USIU-Africa) in Nairobi, Kenya, which coordinates the activities of the Advisory Council. A total of 471 African Diaspora Fellowships have now been awarded for scholars to travel to Africa since the program’s inception in 2013.
Fellowships match host universities with African-born scholars and cover the expenses for project visits of between 14 and 90 days, including transportation, a daily stipend, and the cost of obtaining visas and health insurance.
See a full list of projects, hosts and scholars.
Please direct all questions related to the application process to AfricanDiaspora@iie.org.
