Noni has been heading the Community Engagement platform at the KEMRI Wellcome Trust Research Programme (KWTRP) for the last 7 years. She has a background in Strategic Behaviour Change Communication, Social Marketing and more recently community and public engagement. Her primary role at KWTRP involves developing best practice strategies for the involvement of communities and publics in research work across the different KWTRP sites in Kenya and Mbale Uganda. She is also responsible for mentoring and building capacity of community liaison and research staff in community and public engagement. Additionally, she plays a role in the monitoring and evaluation of KWTRP engagement activities, including sharing lessons learnt with other researchers and engagement practitioners in Africa, Europe and Asia.
Noni is driven by an interest in how to develop meaningful interactions between Researchers and Communities in LMICs: not only ensuring that community views and perspectives influence the conduct of research, but also that communities can be inspired by researchers from the region, and scientists by the lessons of quality science communication.
She is a member of the Global Health Bioethics Network (GHBN); the NIHR Community Engagement and Involvement Advisory Network; and has recently participated in a WHO GPP-EP Taskforce on Social Science and Ethics. She has participated in reviewing funding proposals, with a special focus on Community Engagement aspects of grant proposals.