Organizational Structure
The organization is comprised of the Advisory Committee, Steering committee, Mentors, and Members. The Steering Committee is made up of at least four members who are responsible for the functioning of the hub.
The Steering Committee
The Steering Committee reports to the Advisory Committee which plays an oversight role for the hub. The Advisory Committee with an interest in mentorship will serve as Mentors as well as Guest Speakers when presenting topics and research work to the hub. The Hub will coordinate with the Steering committee in running present bioinformatics projects.
Members
The Members are made up of Master’s students in Bioinformatics and related fields and aspiring bioinformaticians.
Steering Commitee
Festus Nyasimi
Festus Nyasimi is a Bioinformatician based at ICIPE. His research interests are in the field of epidemiology, virology, regulatory genomics and bioinformatics. He is actively engaged in training and community outreach events and he is the lead at the Bioinformatics Hub of Kenya Initiative, a platform that fosters networking, training, and collaborations between bioinformatics researchers and students within the region. He is also an Open Life Science (OLS) mentor and a Carpentries Instructor.
David Mwaura
David Kiragu Mwaura is a Master’s Student in Bioinformatics and Molecular Biology from JKUAT under a full Scholarship from Patricia Williams Mwangaza Foundation Inc, Durham. David’s professional experience is in genomics with a special interest in the One Health approach using bioinformatics in solving scientific gaps. He is affiliated to the Institute of Primate Research, a graduate to the first cohort of Open Life Science, a member of the African International Biotechnology and Biomedical Conference (AIBBC). He is the Treasurer of BHKi.
Michael Landi
Michael Kofia Landi is an EANBiT scholar pursuing an MSc in Bioinformatics. He is a graduate of Pwani University holding a BSc. Biochemistry. He undertook his research project at the BecA-ILRI hub aimed at discovering novel germline alleles in African bovine breeds. He is a co-founder of the Bioinformatics hub of Kenya, an initiative that promotes training, networking, and collaboration. He is an Open Life Science (OLS) graduate.
Margaret Wanjiru
Margaret Wanjiku is an EANBiT master’s fellow with a keen interest in big data analysis, omics and bioinformatics.”
Pauline Karega
Pauline Karega is an Msc Bioinformatics Student at the University of Nairobi currently doing her Research work at ICIPE.
Mentors
Jean-Baka Domelevo Entfellner
Jean-Baka Domelevo Entfellner is a scientist–in bioinformatics at the BecA-ILRI Hub. Before joining the BecA-ILRI Hub, Jean-Baka was a senior lecturer in Computer Science at the University of the Western Cape (Cape Town, South Africa), and a postdoctoral fellow with the South African National Bioinformatics Institute (SANBI). As a postdoctoral fellow, Jean-Baka worked for the NIH-funded H3ABioNet project, part of the broader Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa) initiative.
Verena Ras
Verena Ras is a training and outreach coordinator at H3ABioNet — Pan African Bioinformatics Network for the Human Hereditary and Health in Africa Consortium. She focuses on helping to advance bioinformatics capacity in Africa through training, using a variety of online and face to face modalities. Verena also has other passions. Outside of her work at H3ABioNet she is also a PhD student at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa where she is focusing on exploring the taxonomy, population biology and species connectivity of jellyfish in African waters.
Peter Van Heusden
I am a research software engineer and bioinformatician at the South African National Bioinformatics Institute. My background is in Computer Science and computer systems administration, but I have spent the past decade growing a team working on bioinformatics for the analysis of pathogens in public health, with a focus on M. tuberculosis and scientific workflows. I’m a long-time contributor to the Galaxy project and have provided advice to a number of African public health labs on analysing SARS-CoV-2 genomes and growing bioinformatics capacity more broadly.