Dr. Wendy O’Meara is a Professor of Medicine and Global Health at Duke University, a visiting professor at Moi University, and the Deputy Director of the Duke Global Health Institute. She divides her time between the US and Kenya.
Dr. O’Meara has dedicated the last 20 years to community-based approaches for malaria treatment and prevention in East Africa. Her team’s work focuses on expanding access to accurate diagnosis and treatment, mapping silent reservoirs of transmission using parasite genetic signatures, and tackling emerging threats to malaria control in vulnerable populations. She serves on the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts for the Africa CDC and is an advocate for data justice and equitable data governance in global research.
Dr. O’Meara completed her BSc in Biochemistry at the University of California Berkeley and her PhD in Chemical Engineering at MIT. She then joined Fogarty International Center at the NIH to apply her quantitative and modeling skills to vector borne diseases. She oversees a large malaria research programme under Moi University based in Eldoret, Kenya with hubs in western and northern Kenya. In 2019 she founded the Partnership for Education and Research Laboratory (PEARL) in Webuye, Kenya. In addition to large-scale molecular epidemiology and entomology studies, PEARL has trained over 100 laboratory staff in clinical microscopy. Her expertise is frequently sought by Africa CDC, World Health Organization and the Kenyan Ministry of Health.
