Frederick Murunga Wekesah
Afox Fellow 2025
Dr. Frederick Murunga Wekesah is based at the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC) in Nairobi, Kenya. He is a chronic disease epidemiologist whose current research focuses on mental health and neurological disorders in children and adolescents. Since 2008, he has conducted research on non-communicable diseases, particularly cardiometabolic diseases, within the slums of Nairobi. His prior work includes studying the relationship between sugar-sweetened beverages and childhood malnutrition.
Frederick has extensive research experience, encompassing all stages from conceptualisation to evaluation and publication. He designs and implements scoping and systematic reviews, clinical trials, implementation research, and surveys. By employing mixed research methods, he assesses and executes public health interventions. He also serves as a co-investigator on various research projects and has contributed to numerous scientific publications in international peer-reviewed journals.
Frederick holds a PhD in Epidemiology from the University Medical Center Utrecht at Utrecht University in the Netherlands (2019) and a Master of Science degree in Population-based Field Epidemiology from the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa (2010). Additionally, he is a Bernard Lown Scholar in the Cardiovascular Health Program at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health at Harvard University.