DR. JANE WATHUTA

Dr. Wathuta has a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B) degree from the University of Nairobi, and is an Advocate of the High Court of Kenya. She is also a Master’s Degree holder in Marriage and Family from the University of Navarre and a Research PhD holder in Bioethics from the Biomedical University of Rome. She has trained in research ethics, ethics education, human rights, philosophy and theology, at various institutions in Africa and Europe. Dr. Wathuta is currently the Academic Director at Strathmore University Law School (SLS), and the Director of the Strathmore University Institute for Family Studies and Ethics (IFS).

She is visiting faculty in the SARETI (South African Research Ethics Training Initiative) Master’s Degree program, at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. She is also a visiting researcher at the School of Law, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa. She is also an invited peer reviewer for various academic journals and currently serves as a guest editor for a special issue with Frontiers Public Health. Dr. Wathuta serves in the National Scientific & Ethics Committee (formerly the National Bioethics Committee – NBC), within the National Commission for Science, Technology & Innovation (NACOSTI – Kenya). She also represents Strathmore University in the NCAJ (National Council on the Administration of Justice – Kenya) Special Taskforce on Children Matters. She is a member of the Bioethics Society of Kenya, the Law Society of Kenya, and the co-founder and chairperson of Women in Academia (WiA.ke). She is a trainer and coordinator of professional women’s development programs under the auspices of Kianda Foundation Educational Trust.

He currently leads research and training (Masters and PhD) in Health Systems, focusing on Health Leadership and Governance; Pharmaceutical Commodity Supply Chain Management; Hospital Management; and aspects of health systems efficiency.  He has also been a Professor of Pharmaceutics at the University of Nairobi since 2000. Prof. Kokwaro has been the Chair of the Expert Committee on Clinical Trials (ECCT) at the Ministry of Health, Kenya, since 2009. In 2018, he was appointed by the then Cabinet Secretary for Health to be the Chairperson of the Advisory Panel on development of a Health Benefits Package for Universal Health Coverage (UHC) for Kenya. 

Regarding research capacity development in Kenya, Prof. Kokwaro, as the founder Director of the Consortium for National Health Research (CNHR) received funding of £10 million (approximately USD 18 million at that time) from the Wellcome Trust and DFID in 2007 for health research capacity strengthening in Kenya.  Through this grant, CNHR established 4 Centres of Research Excellence, and supported several senior research leaders, postdoctoral fellows, PhD students and over 80 research interns in Kenya. His main  areas of research  are: systems  approach to road safety,  health systems strengthening  and mathematical modelling (pharmacokinetics) of drugs in patients with malaria,  HIV/AIDS and  other  tropical infectious diseases.