marionspots

In November, I traveled to the Netherlands for the PhD defense of my very first PhD student Kennedy Ngowi. Kennedy was doing his PhD research in my career development fellowship of EDCTP that I had been awarded. The project aimed to investigate the effectiveness of digital adherence tools among adults living with HIV and took from June 2017 till December 2020. It was a great privilege to finally have this important event, which was also a first to me as I had never been on the other side, as in the site of the exam committee. I had the privilege to convey part of the laudatio to Kennedy. I couldn’t be more proud. A full recording of the PhD defense can be found here.

In addition, during this trip, I also was a lot in the office at AIGHD and I went to Wageningen University & Research a number of times to discuss about other PhD students and possible projects. I was happy to receive a senior fellow position at the Knowledge, Technology & Innovation group at this university.

As Netherlands is my country of birth, I, of course, also enjoyed some of the treats of Netherlands, including Sinterklaas and Dutch autumn walks in the forest and on the bike. Lastly, I took my colleagues from Tanzania and Kenya for a day out to a typical 18th century town called De Zaanse Schans.