Biography

Dr. Nelly R. Mugo holds the position of Chief Research Officer and Head, Sexual Reproductive and Adolescent Child Health Research Program (SRACH-RP) at the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) and Research Associate Professor at the University of Washington (USA), department of Global Health. She has 3 decades of work experience as a reproductive health clinical practitioner with 2 decades of work in clinical research. Her research practice focus is in sexually transmitted infections with a focus on HIV-prevention, mostly pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and cervical cancer prevention.

Currently she leads a clinical trial site in Thika, Kenya that has conducted high impact HIV prevention research including the Partners PrEP Study, the landmark clinical trial of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV prevention among serodiscordant couples and the demonstration project of integrated PrEP and antiretroviral treatment for serodiscordant couples. This work has laid the foundation for PrEP implementation in Kenya and globally. She is the lead investigator for the Partners Scale up project, Thika site, and is conducting a clinical trial on HIV self-testing to reduce frequency of clinic visits for oral PrEP users.

Dr. Mugo has contributed to various World Health Organization (WHO) forums and guidelines committee. She is a member of Evidence for Contraceptive Options and HIV Outcomes (ECHO) management committee. She has over 100 publications in peer reviewed journal.