Evelyn Gitau
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Evelyn Gitau | |
|---|---|
| Born | Kenya |
| Alma mater | Open University, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine |
| Awards | Next Einstein Fellow |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Immunology, cellular immunology |
| Institutions | African Academy of Sciences, African Population and Health Research Centre |
| Thesis | Changes in protein levels as markers of severe disease: an investigation of severe malaria (2008) |
Evelyn Nungari Gitau is a Kenyan cellular immunologist at the African Academy of Sciences, and was named a Next Einstein Fellow.
Gitau grew up in the Dagoretti area of Nairobi, Kenya.[1][2] She attended The Kenya High School from 1990 to 1993, where she developed a passion for chemistry,[3] and would spend her free time at the chemistry lab at the University of Nairobi where her best friend's father was the head of the Chemistry department.[4] After graduating high school, she was selected for the inaugural medicine class at Moi University but chose to study chemistry instead.[4]
In 2002, Gitau, joined the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Programme as a Research Assistant in Pharmacology.[2] The KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Programme-Kenya then sponsored her doctoral degree in cellular immunology at the Open University in the UK, in collaboration with the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.[5] Gitau's doctoral research investigated neurological infections in children living in malaria-endemic areas,[6] specifically, how changes in protein levels could be used to detect severe disease. Gitau compared the proteins in the plasma and cerebrospinal fluid of children with cerebral malarial to those in children with other encephalopathies.[2]
