Dr. Andrea Kipingu is a Senior Research Scientist in the Environmental Health and Ecological Sciences Department at the Ifakara Health Institute. He holds a PhD in Infectious Diseases (2025) from the University of Glasgow, UK, an MSc in Mathematical Sciences (2019) from the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Rwanda, and a BSc with Education majoring in Informatics and Mathematics (2017) from Sokoine University of Agriculture, Tanzania. 

Dr. Kipingu is a mathematician teacher by training and spent a few years teaching secondary school mathematics in Tanzania before deciding to continue his studies. During his MSc in Mathematical Sciences, Dr. Kipingu became interested in global health and specifically how mathematics can be applied for understanding and controlling infectious diseases, in particular vector-borne diseases. This is noted by his final project for the MSc which was on the impacts of vaccination on the transmission dynamics of Rift Valley Fever. This interest led Dr. Kipingu to apply for an internship to learn more about malaria epidemiology at Ifakara Health Ifakara, Tanzania. His motivation and skills stood out among other interns, and he was recruited in 2021 to do a PhD at the University of Glasgow, UK. During his PhD project on “Modelling population dynamics to inform the evaluation of vector control tools in semi-field and field settings”, Dr Kipingu developed both theoretical and data-driven models for malaria vector ecology and control. This made for an incredibly technical project, with very different modelling techniques and software being developed and applied for each section of the work.

Since joining Ifakara as an intern, Dr. Kipingu has actively contributed to the Data Science and Mathematical Modelling team, focusing on data management and analysis for National Disease Programmes, particularly in malaria. His research aims to enhance public health through mathematical or statistical modelling approaches and AI, including evaluating the effects of climate change on malaria transmission and vector population dynamics. He played a key role in a WHO scoping review on climate change and malaria, which informed the UN Climate Change Meeting (COP28) report. Currently, Dr. Kipingu is part of various projects at Ifakara Health Institute, including the DM4DM project aiming to develop a critical mass of data scientists and Mathematical modellers, a CEPI-funded consortium known as REMIT aiming to use modelling to inform Rift Valley fever vaccine development and a multi-country AnoSTEP-AfriKa project, aiming to enhance the understanding of the biology of Anopheles stephensi in Africa.

As a graduate teaching assistant during his PhD at the University of Glasgow, he was involved in teaching infectious diseases, statistical and mathematical modelling related courses using the R programming language. Dr. Kipingu mentors junior research scientists at Ifakara Health Institute through a program led by Dr. Samson Kiware, aiming to strengthen data science and mathematical modelling capacity in Tanzania and sub-Saharan Africa. Dr. Kipingu also serves as facilitator of the MSc in Public Health Research programmes offered by Ifakara Health Institute, together with The Nelson Mandela African Institute of Science and Technology (NM-AIST). Dr. Kipingu has published in international peer-reviewed journals and presented at international conferences. Notably, he co-chaired a scientific session at the 2023 American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene conference in the U.S. and won a poster competition at the 2023 Pan-African Mosquito Control Association conference, earning a travel award.

Links to personal profiles:

Google scholar, LinkedIn, X, ORCID, Researchgate and DM4DM