Biography: I am a PhD student at University of Zurich (Microbiology and Immunology PhD program) and funded by the Swiss national science foundation (SNF). I am passionate about understanding the biology of host-parasite interactions during an infection with malaria parasites. I aim to use my knowledge as a tool in the fight for malaria elimination, especially in countries in Sub-Saharan Africa with high malaria disease burden such as Malawi. I graduated with a BSc in biomedical sciences at Mzuzu University, Malawi, which I completed in 2016. I then joined Kamuzu Central Hospital which is among Malawi's largest referral hospitals where I worked at the parasitology department. In 2018, I joined the Malawi Liverpool Wellcome trust clinical research program as a research assistant, working on the first human challenge model in testing the effectiveness of  pneumococcal vaccine (PCV 13) on healthy individuals . In 2020, I secured a core training grant from Malawi-Liverpool Wellcome trust training committee to do a master's degree in Public health at the University of Suffolk. My MSc research assessed the health needs and the burden of infectious diseases in Malawi in children under 5.

Research Interest: I joined the Marti Lab in October 2022. My research aim is to develop an atlas of host-parasite interactions during infection in the hematopoietic niche of the major human malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum and validate specific findings in vitro. This project is in close collaboration with Dr. Chris Moxon (Malawi and Glasgow, my co-supervisor), Prof. Thomas Otto (Glasgow), as well as Profs. Terrie Tylor and Karl Seydel (Malawi and Michigan State University). My specific focus is to investigate host parasite interactions in bone marrow and spleen using IFA and imaging mass cytometry. I anticipate that this series of experiments will provide the first quantitative atlas on parasite and host cell signatures and their distribution across the hematopoietic compartments during P. falciparum infection. The findings would be critical for improving diagnostics and interventions to block transmission, reducing severe disease, and modifying the immune response.