Panellists:

Katie Ellis-Carrigg

MSc, BSc, DMS - Head of Sport and Inclusion at LFC Foundation

Katie has 15 years of experience working in the sport, health and community sector and has worked at the LFC Foundation for 4 years. Katie is passionate about using sport as a vehicle to empower communities and make positive change.

Sara Begg 

MRC-DTP funded PhD student LSTM

Sara is an MRC-DTP funded PhD student, with an MSc in Global Health and Public Policy from the University of Edinburgh and an MRes in Quantitative and Translational Skills in Global Health from Lancaster University.

With a background in Sports Development and Development through Sport, her research experience has focused on mixed-methods evaluation of community-level interventions in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in sports-based and youth-focused HIV education.

Her PhD research uses a Participatory Action Research approach in Nepal to support youth cricketers to transform harmful gender norms and address gendered inequalities in their communities.

She currently overseas the monitoring evaluation and learning for the Health Goals Malawi and Health Goals Liverpool programmes.

Peter Dias 

Programme Manager for Tackle Africa.

Peter has 5 years’ experience delivering Sport for Development projects, delivering vital HIV and Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights information to young people across multiple districts in Malawi. Peter has lead the Malawi team in delivering projects that have included increasing uptake of HIV Self-testing, reducing Child Marriage and teengage pregnancies, and increasing Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision in adolescent boys and young men

 Dr Kondwani Jambo

Senior Lecturer at LSTM, based at the Malawi-Liverpool-Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Programme 

Kondwani obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Technical Education from the University of Malawi in 2004 and a Master of Science in Human Immunity in 2006 from the University of Liverpool. He was then awarded the Commonwealth PhD Scholarship in 2007 and obtained a PhD in Tropical Medicine (Immunology) in 2011 from the University of Liverpool. His PhD included establishing the first Experimental Human Pneumococcal Carriage model in the UK, as well as investigating compartmentalisation of immunity and impact of HIV on lung immunity.

Upon completion of the PhD, he joined the Malawi-Liverpool-Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Programme (MLW) as a postdoctoral scientist and helped develop the MLW Immunology Laboratory.

He later pursued his second postdoctoral training at Cornell University (USA), investigating HIV infection of alveolar macrophages. In 2015, he was awarded the prestigious International Wellcome Intermediate Fellowship and returned to MLW to establish his research group.

Recently, Kondwani has been awarded the prestigious MRC/DFID African Research Leader Fellowship.