Keynote Speakers
Salim S. Virani, MD, Ph.D.
Salim S. Virani, MD, Ph.D., is a tenured Professor in the Sections of Cardiology and Cardiovascular Research at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. He is also an investigator in the Health Policy, Quality, and Informatics Program at the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center (MEDVAMC) Health Services Research and Development Center of Innovation in Houston, TX. His clinical practice includes being a Preventive Cardiologist with a special emphasis on management of complex dyslipidemias. He also serves as the Director for the Cardiovascular Disease Fellowship Training Program at Baylor College of Medicine at MEDVAMC. Dr. Virani earned his medical degree from the Aga Khan University in Pakistan, graduating with the Best Medical Graduate Award. Dr. Virani completed a residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Miami, there receiving an award as the Best Resident. He then completed a Cardiology fellowship at the Texas Heart Institute, where he served as the Chief Cardiology Fellow and received Tauber Award for the Outstanding Graduating Fellow.
Dr. Virani’s research portfolio aims to understand the pathophysiology and epidemiology of atherosclerosis with a special emphasis on South Asians. His team is studying several domains in the delivery of high-quality guideline concordant primary and secondary cardiovascular disease preventive care. Via funded research grants from the Department of Veterans Affairs, American Diabetes Association, American Heart Association, NIH, AHRQ, and the World Heart Federation, his team has been evaluating models of delivery of cardiovascular disease preventive care, how to leverage machine learning while using “big data”, and how point-of-care informatics driven interventions can improve guideline-concordant care delivery. His team is also evaluating how best to leverage technology to deliver high-quality care in Low-Middle Income Countries especially in South Asia. He has authored or co-authored >600 peer-reviewed publications or book chapters (several with his mentees) related to various aspects of cardiovascular disease prevention including cholesterol, blood pressure control and aspirin therapy with several in high-impact journals such as Circulation, European Heart Journal, JAMA, JAMA Cardiology, and Journal of the American College of Cardiology. This work has received >110,000 citations. He has been recognized as “World Expert” in Cholesterol by Expertscape (top 0.01% of scholars writing about cholesterol from 2011-2021 among 181,887 published authors) and among the top 2% of the most cited scientists worldwide by PLos Biology in 2022. Dr. Virani has also served as a faculty for >50 online literary educational programs and has participated in >100 online or in person media interviews. He has made >250 invited presentations at various conferences and academic institutions with >60 of those at institutions and conferences outside the U.S.
Dr. Virani has been a recipient of the Scott Grundy Award for Excellence in Lipids Metabolism Research from the American Heart Association (AHA), the Jeremiah Stamler Distinguished Young Investigator Research Award, Leadership Award from the American College of Cardiology (ACC) NCDR® Oversight Committee, National Lipid Association (NLA) President’s Service Award, and the Clark Faculty Service Award at Baylor College of Medicine for exemplary professionalism and community service. Dr. Virani serves as the Chair for the ACC’s Global NCD Academy and the ACC International’s Global Quality Solutions Work group. He also serves as an At-Large Board Member for the Southwest Chapter of the NLA and as a member on the ACC’s Science and Quality Committee. In the recent past, he served as the Chair for the AHA's Cardiovascular Disease Statistics Committee, Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease Section of the ACC, and the Research and Publications Committee of the ACC’s PINNACLE Registry (the largest outpatient cardiovascular disease registry in the world). He has also served on the Board of Directors for the American Society of Preventive Cardiology, as the Associate Editor for Innovations for ACC.org, and the digital Strategy lead for the cardiovascular disease prevention related content for ACC.org. He has been inducted several times in the Best Doctors® Database (peer-reviewed group that includes the top 5% of U.S. physicians).
Dr. Virani has served as a panel member for the 2018 AHA/ACC Multi-society Guideline on Cholesterol Management, the 2019 ACC/AHA Guideline for the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease, and the 2019 World Heart Federation and International Diabetes Federation’s Road Map on the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease among People Living with Diabetes. More recently, he served as Co-Chair for the National Lipid Association’s Global think tank on Lipoprotein(a). Currently, he is serving as a member of the writing group on the World Heart Federation’s Road Map on Cholesterol Management and the European Atherosclerosis Society’s Consensus statement on Lipoprotein(a).
Dr. Virani firmly believes in the notion of Civil Society that one of the most important objectives of being able to acquire quality education is to serve the communities in which we live and the communities in need. In that respect, he spends ~15-20 hours per week in voluntary service with a dedicated team of volunteers to (a) provide educational and behavioral intervention related resources to combat NCDs in the community (b) play an active role in health care capacity building for communities in South Asia, Central Asia, and East Africa. He also serves on the World Heart Organization’s Technical Advisory Group on NCD related research and innovation (TAG/RI).
Dr. Judy Wawira Gichoya MD, MS
Judy Wawira Gichoya, MD, MS, is Assistant Professor in the Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences at Emory University School of Medicine. Dr. Gichoya is a multidisciplinary researcher, trained as both an informatician and an Interventional radiologist.
Dr. Gichoya is a member of the Cancer Prevention and Control Research Program at Winship Cancer Institute. She holds professional memberships with Radiological Society of North America, American College of Radiology, Society of Interventional Radiology, Society of Imaging Informatics in Medicine and American Medical Informatics Association.
Dr. Gichoya earned her Medical Degree from Moi University in Kenya. She completed her medical internship at Kiambu District Hospital. She earned a Masters of Science in Health Informatics from Indiana University Purdue University in Indianapolis, Indiana. In addition, she completed post-doctoral training in informatics at Regenstrief Institute in Indianapolis, Indiana, and a residency in diagnostic radiology at Indiana University. Prior to arriving at Emory, she completed a fellowship in interventional radiology at Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland, Oregon.
Drawing upon extensive experience with open source communities and contextual knowledge in Africa, Dr. Gichoya hopes to leverage her skills to build capacity for data science in Africa.
Dr. Gichoya’s research interests include studying clinical disparities for minimally invasive procedures, validating machine learning models for health in real clinical settings, exploring explainability, fairness, and a specific focus on how algorithms fail. She has worked on the curation of datasets for the SIIM (Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine) hackathon and ML committee. She volunteers on the ACR and RSNA machine learning committees to support the AI ecosystem to advance development and use of AI in medicine.
Twitter @judynyawira
2021 Keynote Speakers
Dr J. Mwikali Ndolo, MD
She is a Consultant Radiologist currently working in a private practice group in Huntsville, Alabama USA. After completing her radiology residency at Aga Khan University Hospital, Nairobi, she attended Vanderbilt University Medical Center, USA. At Vanderbilt University, Dr Ndolo obtained fellowships in Pediatric Radiology, Pediatric Neuroradiology, Nuclear Medicine and Adult Neuroradiology.
Dr Ndolo completed her medical degree at the University of Nairobi, Kenya. She is a member of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), American College of Radiology (ACR), American Society of Pediatric Neuroradiology (ASPNR), American Society of Head and Neck Radiology (ASHNR) among others. She currently sits on the Learning Library Committee of the American Society of Pediatric Neuroradiology (ASPNR).
She has co-authored several publications in high impact journals and books, including a chapter in Caffey’s book of Pediatric Radiology. She is currently co-authoring a book titled ‘Key Differentials in Pediatric Neuroradiology’.
Dr Ndolo has presented at several international conferences including the American Roentgen Ray Society and Society of Pediatric Radiology meetings.
Dr Akbar K. Waljee, MD
Dr Akbar K. Waljee, MD is a Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan (UM). Dr Waljee serves as the Associate Director of the Data and Methods Hub and the Director of the Michigan Integrated Center for Health Analytics and Medical Prediction (MiCHAMP) both at the UM Institute for Healthcare Policy & Innovation (IHPI).
He also serves as the Director of the Veteran Affairs Center for Clinical Management Research’s (VA CCMR) Prediction Modeling Unit (PMU) and, clinically, he is the Director of the Inflammatory Bowel Disease clinic both at the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System.
Dr Waljee was born in Kenya and moved to the United States to complete his undergraduate and medical degrees at Emory University in Atlanta, GA. He then completed his residency and fellowship at the University of Michigan. Dr Waljee holds a Master’s degree in Health Services Research from the University of Michigan and completed a heath care policy fellowship at the Center for Health and Research Transformation. Dr Waljee’s work is at the forefront of using machine learning and deep learning techniques to improve healthcare access, quality, and efficiency (high-value care) in resource constrained settings.
He uses novel machine learning techniques to implement decision support systems and tools that facilitate more personalized care for disease management and healthcare utilization to ultimately deliver efficient, effective and equitable therapy for chronic diseases. To test and advance these principles, he built operational programs that are guiding—and improving—patient care in costly gastroenterology and liver disorders in under-resourced settings both domestically and abroad.
2020 Keynote Speakers
Dr Omu Anzala MBChB, PhD
Professor of Virology and Immunology in the Department of Medical Microbiology; Senior Research Scientist at KAVI – Institute of Clinical Research (KAVI - ICR), University of Nairobi, Kenya.
Dr Anzala holds a degree in MB;ChB from the University of Nairobi, Kenya; a Diploma in Epidemiology - Tufts University in USA; a PhD in virology and immunology - University of Manitoba, Canada and Postdoctoral Fellow from Institute of Molecular Medicine (IMM), Oxford University, UK.
Prof. Anzala is the leading HIV vaccine investigator in Kenya and was one of the founders of KAVI in the year 1999 as the HIV Vaccine research Unit in Kenya and moving it to its current status as an Institute of Clinical Research in 2013. He was co-PI of the first HIV vaccine trial in Kenya, the second in Africa, using a DNA plasmid. He has subsequently been PI or co-PI for 11 IAVI-funded HIV vaccine trials in adults and the first paediatric HIV vaccine trial in Kenya. Additionally, Prof. Anzala has been the Principal Investigator for the just completed Phase I & Phase II Candidate Ebola Vaccine Trials, which were funded by Janssen & Janssen.
Prof. Anzala has a diverse background in HIV prevention research and his research has focused on the immunological and genetic correlates of long-term survival and immunologic non-progression among HIV-infected sex workers in Kenya. Related experience includes a RCT of azithromycin prophylaxis for STI and HIV, an intermittent PrEP RCT as well as multiple epidemiology studies in at-risk populations including acute HIV infection, mucosal immunology and broadly neutralizing antibody identification in HIV-infected subjects. In addition to HIV research Prof Anzala has pioneered research in One health, looking at infectious elements at the human-animal interface and bringing together collaborators from Europe, India, and other African Countries.
Prof. Anzala has trained in vaccinology with WHO and serves as a member of the Ministry of Health, Vaccination Experts Committee; National Polio Expert Committee, National Vaccine Safety Advisory Committee (all in Kenya) and African Vaccine Manufacturing Initiative (South Africa), Member of National COVID -19 TASK force and a team leader of National COVID-19 Case management, Research and modelling consortium.
He has authored and co-authored over 130 peer-reviewed publications, supervised and mentored over 25 Masters and 9 PhD students to successful completion of their studies and continues to do the same for many more.
Dr Angela Koech MBChB, MSc, Mmed (OB-GYN)
Centre of Excellence in Women and Child Health and an instructor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Aga Khan University.
Dr Angela is a research physician scientist (Obstetrician) at the Aga Khan University’s Centre of Excellence in Women and Child Health, East Africa and an Assistant Professor at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. She holds an MBChB degree (UoN), an MSc in Epidemiology (LSHTM) and a Masters in Obstetrics and Gynaecology (AKU).
Angela has over 7 years’ experience in clinical research in maternal and newborn health. She is currently the Kenya co-Principal Investigator of the Pregnancy Care Integrating Translational Science, Everywhere (PRECISE) study - a large multicentre study looking into placental disorders in Sub-Saharan Africa.
She is also the principal investigator of a study evaluating the role of point of care tests in antenatal care settings in rural Kenya.
Her research interests include preeclampsia and its risk factors; aetiology of preterm birth/low birth weight, anaemia in pregnancy and the role of diagnostics in routine antenatal care in low resource settings.
2019 Keynote Speakers
Prof Dalton Wamalwa, MB.ChB,M.Med, MPH
Prof Dalton is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Paediatrics and Child Health at the University of Nairobi. He received his undergraduate training in Medicine and post-graduate training Paediatrics at the University of Nairobi and undertook Masters training in Public Health (Epidemiology major) and an International Health certificate at the University of Washington, Seattle. Read more
Dr Sikolia Wanyonyi MBChB, MMED, MRCOG
Dr Wanyonyi is an Assistant Professor and Consultant in Obstetrics, Gynaecology and Fetal Medicine at the Aga Khan University Hospital, Nairobi. He is currently the section head of obstetric services in the hospital. He obtained his primary medical qualification from Moi University, Eldoret; Kenya. After completing his internship at the Machakos General Hospital, he joined the Aga Khan Hospital, Nairobi as Senior House Officer in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. Read more
2018 Keynote Speakers
Ambrose Agweyu
Ambrose is a Kenyan paediatrician and clinical research fellow based at the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme in Nairobi. Working closely with the Ministry of Health in 2009, his early research involved conducting systematic reviews for a national exercise to adapt the WHO paediatric clinical guidelines using the GRADE methodology. Read more
Peter Gichagi
Prof Peter Gichangi expertise combines strong leadership, academic, program management and research background with in depth knowledge of reproductive health, maternal and child health, HIV/AIDS, family planning, HIV care and support and gynecological oncology issues. Prof Gichangi is Obstetrician-Gynaecologist, Associate Professor in the of Department of Human Anatomy, University of Nairobi and visiting Professor, Department of Urogynecology, Ghent University Belgium. Prof Gichangi has combined clinical services, teaching, project management and research in the field of Reproductive and sexual Health experience of 27 years. Read more
