14th WARIMA Conference 2023; Invited Key Speakers
About Our Speakers
Professor Sir Tumani Corrah
Professor Sir Tumani Corrah KBE FRCP is a Gambian clinician whose fields of research include tuberculosis, HIV and malaria. Corrah is Director of the Africa Research Excellence Fund (AREF) and Director, Africa Research Development, Medical Research Council.
Tumani Corrah studied medicine at the First Pavlov State Medical University of St Petersburg, Russia and University College Ibadan, Nigeria. In the late seventies he went to the UK, first to Edinburgh then to Wales, where he trained for his Membership of the Royal College of Physicians as a chest physician in the Department of Medicine, Gwynedd General Hospital. In 1981, after obtaining his MRCP he was appointed consultant physician.
In 2014 Tumani Corrah was appointed as the first Emeritus Director of the MRC Unit in the Gambia and was awarded an Honorary Fellowship by The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the progress of clinical research in The Gambia and in West Africa as a whole.
Prof. Umberto D’Alessandro
Prof. Umberto D’Alessandro (MD, MSc, PhD) has a long working experience in Africa, first as a clinician (Benin and Kenya) and later as a clinical epidemiologist (The Gambia). He has been involved in malaria research since 1990 when he carried out the evaluation of the Gambian National programme on insecticide-treated bed nets. He joined the Department of Parasitology at the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium in 1996 where he was, until the end of 2010, was the head of the Epidemiology Unit. There, he developed a research program around three themes: antimalarial treatment, including drug resistance, malaria prevention, and the P. vivax in vitro cycle, implemented in several malaria endemic countries, e.g., Uganda, Burkina Faso, Benin, Vietnam, Peru, etc.
In 2011, Professor D’Alessandro joined the Medical Research Council Unit The Gambia (MRCG) as theme leader of disease control and elimination. In January 2014, he was appointed director of the MRCG. His research program on malaria at the MRCG is built around questions related to malaria elimination/eradication.
Lukman Aroworamimo
Lukman Aroworamimo is the managing director of inqaba biotec West Africa and was responsible for establishing the company across the West and Central Africa region. Lukman obtained his BSc from Midrand Graduate Institute (Now Pearson Institute) and an MA in African Studies from the University of Ibadan.
He is passionate about Africa’s development particularly along the lines of science and culture and has played key roles in some of the most exciting scientific projects in the country such as the establishment of the pioneer molecular laboratories in Nigeria and a science radio show seeking to demystify scientific concepts amongst average Nigerians.
In 2016, Lukman was awarded the highly curveted Leader of Tomorrow (LoT) prize in Biotechnology at Cambridge University and is an alumnus of Stanford University Graduate School of Business’s Stanford Seed Program for entrepreneurs set to transform the African economy.
Lukman currently serves on the board of a number of companies providing services in the pharma, technology and healthcare sectors. He is also an active investor in Africa’s fintech and education space.
Dr Maggy Heintz
Dr Maggy Heintz is Executive Director of UKCDR, the UK Collaborative on Development Research. In her role, she provides high-level engagement, strategic coordination and supports best practice amongst the UK main funders of international development research.
Maggy has a background in academic research having conducted research in Earth Sciences (seismology) at the Australian National University and the University of Cambridge. She then joined the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs in London as a science attaché, leading on the areas of physical sciences and innovation. In that role, she supported science and technology collaborations between France and the UK. She then came back to the higher education sector as research development manager supporting international development research and later Head of research and business development at the University of Leicester (UK). In that role she facilitated, managed, and coordinated large scale multidisciplinary research proposals addressing the UN SDGs, working with a range of partners in LMICs. Maggy feels passionately that science, education and communication are key drivers of change to bridge the gaps between countries, empower communities and achieve the SDGs.
Dr Phil Clare
Dr Phil Clare is CEO of Queen Mary Innovation Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Queen Mary University of London. QMI uses commercial tools to maximise the impact of QMUL research through protecting and licensing Intellectual property and building sustainable enterprises to take Queen Mary’s research to the world.
Previously he was Director of Innovation and Engagement at the University of Oxford and also worked at the Universities of Bath and Bournemouth. He is a member of Research England Council and Ambassador (and former Chair) for PraxisAuril. He previously served on the committee of ARMA and as chair of the KEC evaluation panel for UUK. He is a Registered Technology Transfer Professional and a Member of the Institute of Directors. He used to be a chemist and has degrees from Kings College London and the Universities of Bath, Bournemouth and Oxford.