Sharifa Abdulla Bunn

Sharifa Abdulla, PhD is a Malawian scholar and theatre for development practitioner holding a lecturer position with the University of Malawi, Chancellor College in the Department of Fine and performing Arts. She recently obtained her PhD at the University of Glasgow's School of Education, where she completed a study on folk media on HIV/AIDS in Malawi. Sharifa holds a BA in Arts Humanities and an MA in Dramatic Arts from the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa.

Sharifa focuses on exploring the design and development of Participatory Arts based methodologies that integrate communities as vital agents of change. She has been designing, developing and leading implementation of participatory health related programs including co-founding the Art and Global Health Center Africa

Chisomo Kalinga

Chisomo Kalinga, PhD is a Chancellor's Fellow at the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Edinburgh. Her current research project is titled ‘Ulimbaso ‘You will be strong again’: How literary aesthetics and storytelling inform concepts of health and wellbeing in Malawi’, which engages how indigenous literary practices (performance, form and aesthetics) are used to address community health. Her research interests are disease (specifically sexually transmitted infections), illness and wellbeing, biomedicine, traditional healing and witchcraft and their narrative representation in African oral and print literatures.

Rodney Likaku

Rodney Likaku studies as a doctoral student in English literatures at Uppsala University in Sweden. His current research is in “Writing Poverty” and his interest in the medical humanities extends his professional ambitions to apply semiotics and text-based approaches to the understanding of complex human conditions in the humanities. You can email him at rodney.likaku@engelska.uu.se

Tumaini Malenga

Tumaini Malenga, PhD is a Research and Policy Analyst with the African Institute for Development Policy (AFIDEP), leading and supporting programmes in the health, well-being and education thematic area, specifically relating to public health, health policy and stakeholder engagement. She obtained a BA in Sociology and Psychology from Bellarmine University, and an MSc in International Development from the University of Bath. She completed her PhD Fellowship in Health Systems and Policy with the Consortium of Advanced Research and Training in Africa (CARTA), based at the University of Malawi’s College of Medicine. She was part of a multi-stakeholder and interdisciplinary research project on malaria control in communities surrounding the Majete Wildlife Reserve in Southern Malawi. Her research involved identifying the motivators and deterrents of health behaviour change in rural communities with poor health systems. Her research interests are health behaviour, community engagement, social and behaviour change communication as well as health systems and policy development.

Atikonda Akuzike Mtenje-Mkochi

Dr. Atikonda Akuzike Mtenje-Mkochi is a senior lecturer in Linguistics and Communication and Head of Language and Communications department at Malawi University of Science and Technology (MUST). She holds a PhD, MA and BA (honours) in Linguistics from University of Cape Town. She also has a Bachelor of Arts (Humanities) degree from Chancellor College of the University of Malawi.

Her research interests are in phonology, morpho-syntax and micro-variation of Bantu languages, with focus on the of the minority language varieties of Cisukwa, Cindali and Cilambya. She is currently working on phonological and morpho-syntactic micro-variation patterns of closely related languages and language varieties in Malawi. She is also working on a project which is reinventing Malawian folktales for environment and climate change communication.

Emmanuel Ngwira

Emmanuel Ngwira PhD teaches literature and popular culture in the English Department at University of Malawi—Chancellor College and is the Dean of Humanities. His research interests are in contemporary African popular culture, contemporary African fiction, medical humanities and African oral literature.

Helen Todd

Helen Todd is the executive director of the Art and Global Health Centre Africa. Prior to joining the AGHCA, Helen served for two years as Malawi Program Manager for Global Health Corps, a fellowship programme aiming to build the next generation of leaders for health equity. Helen has previously worked with diverse groups, including refugee communities in the UK and Malawi and indigenous communities in Peru.

She loves working alongside and learning from people with varied backgrounds to find creative solutions to challenges. Helen holds an MProf in Leadership for Sustainable Development from Middlesex University and a BA in Psychology and Philosophy from Sheffield University. In her spare time she is often found hiking, or enjoying art, music and theatre.

Professor Megan Vaughan

Megan Vaughan, FBA, FRHistS is a British historian and academic, who specialises in the history of East and Central Africa. Since October 2015, she has been Professor of African History and Health at the Institute of Advanced Studies, University College London.

Dr John Lwanda

John Lloyd Chipembere Lwanda is a medical doctor, writer, poet, researcher, publisher, and music producer. He is a published author and also a publisher of books and music. He is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Glasgow's School of Social & Political Sciences.

Dr Chiwoza Bandawe

Chiwoza Bandawe is a Clinical Psychologist and Founder, Harmony Mental Wellness Solutions. He was most recently an Associate Professor in the Department of Mental Health at the Kamuzu University of Health Sciences. His areas of interest and expertise include Social Psychology, particularly cultural aspects of human behavior and mental health competence, Indigenous African Psychology and mental health education.

Art and Global Health Centre Africa

Centre for Medical Anthropology, University of Edinburgh (EdCMA)

University College London

Medical and Health Humanities Africa