Chimwemwe Kwanjo-Banda

He was born on 20 October 1983. He is married and has two children. He is a nurse-midwife by profession. He obtained his first degree in nursing from the University of Malawi in 2006, and in 2008 he earned a University Certificate in Midwifery from the same university. Before joining academia, he had worked in government hospitals in the fields of mental health, maternal health, and child health nursing. In 2012, he graduated with a Master of Science in Nursing from the University of Cape Town in South Africa. In the same year, he joined the University of Malawi as a lecturer in the Medical and Surgical Nursing Department at Kamuzu College of Nursing. In 2015, he graduated with a postgraduate diploma in Health Sciences Education from the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa. Apart from teaching students, he was also involved in a research project called Mzake ndi Mzake. This is a community-based implementation model for HIV prevention and testing using peer education. The research project is a collaboration between researchers from the University of Malawi and the University of Illinois at Chicago. The study is funded by the National Institute of Nursing Research in the United States. In 2016, he was awarded a PhD scholarship by the Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa (CARTA). This scholarship has been one of the biggest opportunities in his career. Through this scholarship, he has gained advanced skills in research methods and writing. He has also been connected to a network of person PhD candidates from various institutions across Africa. Currently, he is registered for a PhD with the School of Public Health at the College of Medicine, University of Malawi. His research interests are in non-communicable diseases, and the focus of his PhD is diabetes self-management among Malawian patients. His aim is to be one of Malawi's leading researchers and to contribute to the development of context-specific measures to improve prevention and treatment of non-communicable diseases in the country.