Summer Visiting Fellows Farewell Mixer - 2026

Please join us in saying our goodbyes to the 2026 Cohort of Global Health Fellows, the evening of June 29th ; hang out with the fellows one last time and see others engaged globally here at Penn. This year we have 3 amazing fellows from the following countries, Ghana, Botswana, and Peru. Find their bios below:

Akua Serwaa Boafo is a medical doctor and Clinical Research Physician at the KNUST-IVI Collaborative Centre in Agogo, Ghana. Her work focuses on vaccine-preventable enteric diseases and the implementation of evidence-based interventions in low- and middle-income settings. She serves on the PEDVAC Phase II invasive non-typhoidal Salmonella (iNTS) pediatric vaccine trial and the TyVEGHA Phase IV Typhoid Conjugate Vaccine (TCV) study, and recently coordinated Ghana’s national TCV Feasibility Assessment through engagement with key stakeholders to understand the operational readiness for potential vaccine introduction.

Dr. Boafo’s interests span implementation science, health-systems strengthening, and improving equitable access to essential medicines and vaccines. She also has a growing interest in the application of artificial intelligence to enhance surveillance, optimize program operations, and support data-driven decision-making in public health.

Her long-term goal is to build sustainable, locally led implementation research platforms that accelerate the evaluation and scale up of high-impact interventions across Ghana and sub-Saharan Africa. She is committed to bridging research, policy, and real-world practice to advance health equity

María Paula Requena Herrera is a physician and early-career researcher from Peru specializing in neglected zoonotic diseases, particularly cystic echinococcosis (CE). She has experience leading field teams and community-based research, combining quantitative and qualitative approaches to examine the social and structural determinants that hinder effective surveillance, diagnosis, and treatment of CE.

Paula has conducted studies highlighting the importance of CE in the southern Peruvian region of Arequipa and the city’s role as a migration and treatment hub for other highland regions, while also emphasizing how mobility and inequities influence access to healthcare and disease control. Working closely with local health authorities, she seeks to improve zoonotic disease control by developing sustainable, evidence-based interventions that enhance screening, treatment, and follow-up systems, and strengthen One Health–based public health programs.

Onalenna Junior Makhura, is a Data Science Researcher at the Botswana Institute for Technology Research and Innovation (BITRI), where he applies expertise in computer vision, machine learning, and data analysis to applied research and development.

A current focus of his work involves developing a locally relevant Computer-Aided Detection (CAD) system that uses AI to improve the diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis from chest radiographs in Botswana. The project aims to address the country's critical shortage of qualified radiologists by training and fine-tuning an open-source CAD algorithm on local clinical and radiographic data, with the goal of matching expert radiologist accuracy while significantly outperforming non-specialist medical officers.

He holds a PhD in Computing and Electronic Systems from the University of Essex, where his research focused on identifying and counting objects of interest in video streams with dynamic backgrounds. Prior to joining BITRI, Onalenna spent over a decade as a Lecturer at the University of Botswana, contributing to curriculum development and student mentorship, and earlier worked as a Software Engineer at DCDM Consulting. He is a certified TOGAF® 9 Foundation practitioner, reflecting his grounding in IT governance and technology strategy.