Sophia Osawe, PhD, MPH, AIMLS, EMBA

Dr Sophia Osawe is currently the Head of Department of Research Operations at the International Research Centre of Excellence (IRCE) at the Institute of Human Virology Nigeria (IHVN). IRCE is the research arm of IHVN led by Prof Alash’le Abimiku. The Research Operations department houses the Clinical trial Unit (Unit lead: Dr Eriobu Nnakelu), the Quality Assurance Unit (Unit lead: Mrs Blessing Uche) and the Field Operations Unit (Led by : Mrs Miriam Bathnna). She brings to the team over 17 years of experience in diagnostics, research, system strengthening, project management and quality management systems implementation. As an early career researcher, Dr Osawe has implemented studies exploring vaccine hesitancy of prenatal vaccines at a community level. In the first 8 years of her career at IHVN she was involved in the HIV care and treatment programs, setting up molecular laboratories and providing capacity building to health care workers on proper sample management for HIV viral load and early infant diagnosis for the HIV service programs.

Dr Osawe has co-authored over 20 peer-reviewed manuscripts and presented at local and international conferences. Dr Osawe led the institute’s first medical laboratory to achieve international accreditation in 2018 as well as a total of 9 medical laboratories in Malawi between the years 2020-2023, to achieve and maintain international accreditation in accordance with ISO 15189.