Dr Amel Ghouila

Amel Ghouila is currently a senior program officer at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.  She is a prominent bioinformatician and advocate for women's empowerment in technology. With a Ph.D. in Bioinformatics from the Laboratory of Informatics, Robotics, and Microelectronics in Montpellier, France, she has made significant contributions to biomedical research in Africa, particularly through her work with H3ABioNet, a pan-African bioinformatics network. Her efforts focus on enhancing biomedical research capacity across the continent using big data analytics and machine learning tools.

Beyond her academic achievements, Amel is a passionate advocate for open science and education. She was recognized as one of Mozilla's "50 People Who Are Making the Internet a Better Place" in 2017. Amel has also been actively involved in initiatives that empower young women in technology. She founded Technovation Tunisia, a non-profit that teaches young girls coding and entrepreneurship skills.

Amel's work has earned her numerous awards and recognition, including serving as Vice-President of the African Society of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology from 2016 to 2019. She has also been a visiting researcher at Harvard School of Public Health and is an alumna of the TechWomen program, supported by the U.S. Department of State.