BOSTON, March 5, 2020 – The Harvard Ministerial Leadership Program is pleased to announce that Brenda Nyanchama Onguti has been selected as the 2020 Tessa Jowell Research Fellow.  With the support of this Fellowship, Brenda will conduct research to identify practices that facilitate or hinder provision of quality antenatal care in Zambia and generate actionable strategies that can be used by the Zambian Ministry of Health to improve the quality of care in public health facilities.

Brenda is currently pursuing her Doctor of Public Health degree at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She has a strong interest in translating evidence-based research into public health interventions by using innovative approaches to identify gaps, ideate solutions, and implement better health services in Africa. Previously, Brenda held positions at Jhpiego, USAID, and the Kenyan Ministry of Health. In these roles, she contributed to substantive programmatic research and implementation, with a specific focus on maternal and newborn health, reproductive health, and health systems strengthening. Brenda also holds a Master of Public Health from John Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and a Bachelor of Pharmacy from the University of Nairobi.

The Fellowship is named in honor of the late Baroness Tessa Jowell, a founding member of the Harvard Ministerial Program Advisory Board.  The Fellowship is awarded annually and recipients selected for the Fellowship must have as their research focus topics that are of priority to Ministers participating in the Harvard Ministerial Leadership Program and must intend to conduct most of their research in the subject country.

The Harvard Ministerial Leadership Program is a joint initiative of the Harvard T.H Chan School of Public Health, the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.