Kelly Elimian
AfOx Fellow 2025
Dr. Kelly Elimian is a Nigerian epidemiologist and global health security specialist at the University of Benin, and has provided consultancy to leading global health organisations, including the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, Wellcome Trust, the World Health Organisation, and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. Kelly is an inaugural Biosecurity Game Changers Fellow at the Brown University Pandemic Centre (placed with Gavi). He has previously undertaken a three-year postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Global Public Health at Karolinska Institutet, Sweden, where he focused on strengthening cholera interventions in fragile regions of northeast Nigeria, as well as advancing sustainable health and educational initiatives.
As an AfOx Fellow, Kelly is collaborating with colleagues at the University of Oxford—Dr. Gail Carson, Professor Proochista Ariana, and Dr. Nina Jamieson—to design and deliver an executive course on global health security for mid-senior public health stakeholders in Nigeria, with scope for regional expansion.
Kelly's research spans epidemic preparedness, antimicrobial resistance, and biosecurity. As the founder of the Global South Open Health Education (GSOUTH) initiative, he's dedicated to advancing equitable capacity building through affordable, high-quality training in sustainable health, epidemiology, biosecurity, and pandemic sciences.