Inaugural recipient of the TWAS‐Abdool Karim African Women in Science Award visits CAPRISA
Clinical epidemiologist and HIV/TB researcher, Dr Barbara Burmen, who is the inaugural TWAS-Abdool Karim African Women in Science award recipient, visited CAPRISA from 27 – 31 August, to gain insights into CAPRISA’s HIV and TB treatment research and explore opportunities for collaboration.
“This is an award for a promising woman scientist from a low-income country in Africa to encourage and support more African women science leaders to emerge in low and middle-income countries,” said Prof Quarraisha Abdool Karim, CAPRISA’s Associate Scientific Director.
Burmen who is currently a senior research officer and principal investigator in HIV and TB implementation science at Kenya Medical Research Institute, delivered a public lecture at the Nelson R Mandela School of Medicine entitled: ‘Evaluating the value of prospective contact investigation of household members of patients with drug-susceptible tuberculosis in childhood TB control in Kisumu County Kenya’. Burmen said she was impressed by the “contextual state-of-the-art biomedical clinical and implementation science research in HIV and TB, undertaken by researchers at CAPRISA who are predominantly, women” She obtained her MBChB at Moi University in Kenya and her master’s in public health from the University of Liverpool Online. She completed her PhD in public health at Maseno University in Kenya and will undertake her post doctoral studies at UCT next year.