Dr Irene Owusu Donkor

Dr Irene Owusu Donkor is a Research Fellow in the Epidemiology Department of the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research (NMIMR) and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow on the African Postdoctoral Training Initiative (APTI). Her fellowship at the NIH Rocky Mountain Laboratories ignited her interest in viral diseases research and working on COVID-19 related studies has made her to the importance of viral epidemics and pandemics to humans.

Dr Donkor obtained her BSc degree in Animal Biology and Conservation Science, and Master’s in Public Health (MPH), in Epidemiology and Disease Control, PhD in Public Health (Epidemiology and Disease Control) from the School of Public Health, University of Ghana. Dr. Donkor worked with the Lymphatic Filariasis Support Centre for Africa based at NMIMR organizing training workshops for programme managers and laboratory technicians and conducting operational research. She has consulted for the WHO AFRO, to assist the Malawian Onchocerciasis Control Program, in conducting surveillance activities in areas where ivermectin distribution has stopped, and in the evaluation of the Ov16 rapid test against that of the skin snip.

Her current career goals are to advance knowledge in the field of epidemiology and virology, specifically viral ecology, by applying the knowledge and skills in epidemiology to viral diseases. By investigating the host-virus interactions, she hopes to answer critical questions related to who gets infected, what the transmission cycles of the viruses are, and what causes zoonotic viruses to jump populations, and to develop translatable and reproducible robust epidemiologic models. Dr Owusu Donkor is a recipient of the Emerging Research Talent award at the First Merck Africa Research Summit held in Geneva, Switzerland in 2015.