Having joined MLW as a Medical Laboratory Research Technician within Salmonella and Enterics Research Group in 2016, Happy has been working on the Strategic Typhoid Alliance across Africa and Asia (STRATAA) and Typhoid Vaccine Acceleration Consortium (TyVAC).

Through his research exposure within the group and the research environment in the MLW community, Happy realized the need to pursue further his studies to gain more knowledge and skills to understand microevolution in Salmonella, through researching new interventions work towards the discovery of new diagnostic, therapeutics and vaccines. In 2018 he was admitted to the College of Medicine (now KUHeS) to pursue a Master’s degree in Bioinformatics.

Happy expressed his gratitude for his supervisory team in this way, “I am glad to report that with the supervision of Prof Melita Gordon – the group head, Associate Prof Arox Kamng’ona and the mentorship of Dr. Tonney Nyirenda and Angeziwa Chirambo, I successfully finished the course, and graduated on 8th December 2021. I am one of the first cohorts of students to be locally trained as Bioinformaticians in Malawi. I express my gratitude to the TyVAC study for spotting and unleashing my potential and later funding the whole course. This award is a significant step towards achieving my career objectives. In the meantime, as I prepare to enroll in a Ph.D. program, I am going through further training on genomic analysis of Salmonella with Phil Ashton. I am also conducting a metagenomic analysis of STRATAA samples from Nepal, Bangladesh, and Malawi. 

Keep progressing, Happy!