Dr. Rhoda Wanyenze is a Professor and Dean at Makerere University School of Public Health (MakSPH). She has vast experience in infectious diseases and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) program management, research, and capacity building in Uganda and the African region. Rhoda has been engaged in public health programming especially HIV/AIDS for 30 years, at various levels (clinical, program management, research, and policy development) and has effectively managed large-scale service and research projects with multiple partnerships. She has conducted numerous studies in HIV to evaluate models of HIV testing and linkage to care and prevention in the general population, among pregnant women, and among key and vulnerable populations (adolescents and young women, fisherfolk, sex workers, among others). She is currently the PI to an ending US CDC funded grant to Strengthen Civil Society Organizations’ Capacity and Coordination for Accelerated HIV Epidemic Control in Uganda through Supporting Implementation of Comprehensive HIV/AIDS Prevention and Treatment for Key Populations (KP) under PEPFAR. She has had a wide range of impactful
knowledge translation outcomes and has widely published, with >300 peer reviewed journal articles in addition to book chapters. Her work has also informed various implementation and policy changes in Uganda and within
the African region.
Within the African region, Rhoda has provided leadership (as Principal Investigator) for several regional research and capacity building networks and has vast experience in coordination of large multicounty partnerships. Over the past six years, she has been PI to the network to enhance analytics and data use across 12 countries in Eastern and Southern Africa, which has evolved into a digital health community of practice (with funding from
the Global Fund). She also led a study to assess the Covid-19 response in 5 countries in Africa (funded by the Gates Foundation), which has evolved into the Center of Research Excellence for preparedness and response to pandemics and shocks—with partnerships across 5 countries in Africa and 3 countries in Europe. She has worked with several key actors at the regional level including WHO and Africa CDC, and institutions in DRC, Kenya and Tanzania—the partners in this proposed project. These linkages provide an opportunity for wide stakeholder engagement in the proposed grant as well as evidence uptake.