Dr Mwai holds

• a PhD in clinical medicine and global health (University of Oxford, UK), and has had additional
• postgraduate training in epidemiology and statistics (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and
• Strategy and Innovation (Oxford Said Business School).

Areas of Expertise

Dr Mwai’s expertise is multifaceted, spanning areas such as

• Pharmaceutical Research and Development (R&D),
• Health Technology Assessment,
• Evidence-Based Health Care,
• translational medicine,
• implementation science,
• social and behavior change communication,
• capacity and ecosystem strengthening,
• program management and grant making, and
• data for decision-Making.

Experience

Dr. Mwai draws her deep professional expertise from the diversity of roles she has held across various public and private sector organizations including

• KEMRI-Wellcome Trust,
• African Institute for Development Policy (AFIDEP),
• University of British Columbia,
• Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC),
• UK Foreign Common Wealth and Development Office (FCDO),
• IDinsight and
• Shujaaz Inc.

In collaboration with key funders and funding platforms such as Wellcome Trust, Bill Gates Foundation, Canada’s IDRC, DELTAS initiative amongst others, Dr. Mwai has been involved in mobilizing funding of over US $ 200 million, with most of the funding going towards research and innovation capacity and ecosystem strengthening, evidence-based health care, health-technology assessment, health systems strengthening, research and evaluation, and strengthening data and evidence systems.

Publications

She has co-published over 40 articles and abstracts in international peer-reviewed journals and platforms spanning the broad areas of

• clinical pharmacology,
• child health,
• early childhood development,
• translational medicine,
• implementation science,
• evidence-based health care,
• data science, and
• capacity and ecosystem strengthening.

Interests

Dr. Mwai is interested in research on innovation and scaling interventions, particularly on how to optimize the linkages between research, policy and practice throughout the lifecycle of projects and programs, in order to maximize the impact of health systems and cross-sectoral interventions.