Faculty Scholar Visit

​One of the APHREA-DST’s training programs is the Faculty Development program which aims at building faculty capacity in Public Health and Data Science. In year 2 of the APHREA-DST project, the second cohort of Faculty Scholars, two from AAU and two from UoN were selected, that is, Merger, Awgichew, Kipchirchir, and Carolyne. These 4 not only had an opportunity to be peer mentored by the first cohort of Faculty Scholars, but also participated in training, mentoring, and knowledge exchange from experienced faculty at Columbia University. Awgichew and Carolyne are under the mentorship of Dr. Linda Valeri, in the Department of Biostatistics while Merger and Kipchirchir are under the mentorship of Prof. Samory Kpotufe, from the Department of Statistics.

The culmination of the second cohort Faculty mentorship was a visit to Columbia University from October 9 to 13, 2023. Just as with the first cohort, the second cohort was also joined by their institutional mentors, the APHREA-DST PIs for AAU and UoN, Dr. Rahel Bekele, and Prof. Patrick Weke. The visit to Columbia started with a joint welcome Caribbean dinner at The Radio Hotel, where the Faculty Scholars and institutional mentors enjoyed the new culture in food, music, and dance, thanks to the wonderful organization by APHREA-DST PI, Prof. Kiros Berhane, and interim project manager, Mrs. Niurka Suero-Tejeda.

In the days that followed, the scholars were involved in a series of discussions and mentorship sessions with their Columbia University mentors, Dr. Valeri and Prof. Kpotufe. These physical meetings were a welcome change from the online meetings that were being held while the scholars were in their home institutions. The scholars not only got an opportunity to expand their horizons in terms of research but also gained from the wealth of knowledge in student mentorship in Data Science at Columbia. 

​Further, the team led by Prof. Kiros Berhane, met with the Dean, of Mailman School of Public Health (MSPH), Dean Linda Fried, to discuss the experiences in Public Health research at Columbia and Eastern Africa.

​In addition, the Faculty Scholars took a trip to Columbia School of Nursing (SON) where they were involved in a half-day session of presentation and discussions with the faculty led by Prof. Suzanne Bakken. These discussions were very informative and an eye-opening opportunity to the wealth of applications of data science in the nursing field

A visit to Columbia University would not be complete without a trip to the Morningside Campus, thus, the faculty scholars and mentors took a day trip tour to the campus under the able guidance of Mrs. Niurka Suero-Tejeda. While at Morningside, the team together with Prof. Kiros Berhane, met with Prof. Vijay Modi at the Department of Engineering, to explore the data collected using their renewal energy technologies and discuss possibilities of collaboration. The day then closed with joint farewell dinner at Tartina Italian Restaurant.

​On the final day of the visit, Prof. Kiros Berhane together with Prof. Pam Factor-Litvak organized a roundtable at MSPH where the T32 trainees at the Department of Epidemiology and the visiting Faculty Scholars shared their research which sparked a very interesting and fruitful discussion.