Happy Mkali is a Research Scientist with over 10 years of experience in health research at Ifakara Health Institute, where she has been part of the molecular biology and immunology units since 2011. Her expertise includes performing molecular analyses on human specimens and establishing membrane feeding assays for mosquitoes, as well as cell and parasite cultures for malaria intervention and drug resistance studies. Currently, she also serves as the Disease Surveillance Coordinator for the DYNAMIC project in collaboration with NIMR and Swiss partners (Unisante/Swiss TPH).

Happy holds a Bachelor’s degree in Biotechnology and Laboratory Sciences from Sokoine University of Agriculture, Tanzania, and a Master’s degree in Molecular Biology from Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences with a Global Health track at the University of Geneva-Institute of Global Health. Her Ph.D. project focuses on smart surveillance and early outbreak detection based on electronic clinical decision support algorithm data and targeted microbiological testing.

Since 2016, Happy has been involved in a global surveillance project for emerging zoonotic viruses (PREDICT) under the USAID Emerging Pandemic Threats (EPT) program, coordinating the laboratory component. Notably, she conducted a One Health specialist short course in 2019 under the PREDICT project, which aimed to strengthen the local One Health workforce. Happy has also worked on malaria projects in collaboration with international partners such as the CDC and CRESIB, focusing on in-vitro malaria drug sensitivity testing and MiPPAD. As the laboratory lead for Tanzania in the PREDICT project, she focused on emerging zoonotic viruses.

In addition to her research work, Happy has contributed to co-authoring research publications in renowned journals, including a notable publication available here.