4 CARTA Fellows awarded Post-doctoral Fellowships

The Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa (CARTA) has awarded its first ever post-doctoral fellowships to CARTA fellows who have completed the PhD fellowship program. The awards announced yesterday saw four fellows awarded the fellowships competitively. CARTA aims at securing the future and fostering the career growth of its high-achieving graduates and thus the post-doctoral fellowships are a good way to ensure this is turned into a reality.

The post-doctoral fellowships will offer the awardees the opportunity to build specific skills, expand their networks, encounter research leadership and role models, receive strong mentoring and learn the demands of community and public engagement. The fellowships will run for a maximum of 12 months and are tenable at any African CARTA partner-institution or associated research institutes.

The fellows will undertake their post-doctoral fellowships at institutions they had identified and each has been assigned a mentor prior to this award who will work with them to help them build their skills.

The four CARTA fellows who were awarded the post-doctoral fellows are as follows:

Linda Alinane Nyondo is a Cohort 2 CARTA fellow of the School of Public Health and Family Medicine, College of Medicine, University of Malawi, Blantyre, Malawi. Nyondo will undertake her post- doctoral fellowship at the Malawi Liverpool Wellcome (MLW) Trust Clinical Research Programme. She will be mentored and supervised by Dr. Anja Terlouw. “I am very excited with this award. Once again, I am thankful to CARTA for this opportunity to advance my career,” said an elated Nyondo when she received her award letter.

Sulaimon Adedokun is a Cohort 1 CARTA fellows who undertook his PhD studies at the Obafemi Awololo University in Nigeria. He will be undertaking his post-doctoral fellowship at University of Warwick, University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom. Adedokun will be mentored and supervised by Dr. Olalekan A. Uthman, Assistant Professor in Research Systems at the Centre for Applied Health Research and Delivery (CAHRD) at the University of Warwick and Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. “I wish to express my appreciation to CARTA for this great opportunity. I promise to make maximum use of this opportunity and keep the flag of CARTA flying,” remarked Adedokun upon receiving his award letter”.

Banjo Olufunmilayo is a Cohort 3 CARTA fellow who did her PhD at the Obafemi Awololo University in Nigeria. She will be undertaking her post-doctoral fellowship at the Demography and Population Studies Programme, School of Social Sciences, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. Banjo will be mentored and supervised by Professor Clifford Odimegwu from the same school. “I am sincerely grateful to CARTA for this rare opportunity and a platform to move on in the pursuit of my academic career. I promise to abide by the terms of the contract as much as I see God helping me. I am indeed very grateful,” said Banjo.