Co-director

Martin Kiwanuka was trained as a biomedical engineer at Makerere University, Uganda (BSc) and the University of Cape Town, South Africa (MSc). During his BSc, he and the team designed a first-aid device (The Maternal PPH Wrap) to control postpartum haemorrhage in mothers after birth and during delays in medical interventions under the supervision of Dr. Robert Ssekitoleko. This project won the global health honourable mention award in 2017 at the Big Ideas competition, University of California Berkeley and the Grand Challenges Canada Stars in Global Health (Award # R-ST-POC-1808-17001) in 2017. After his BSc, he worked as a research and teaching assistant at the Biomedical Engineering Unit, Makerere University, between September 2016 and January 2019. In his MSc, he evaluated the effect of paclitaxel treatment on the cellular mechanics and morphology of human oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma of South African origin in 2D and 3D environments under the supervision of Prof. Thomas Franz and Assoc. Prof. Neil Davies. Martin's MSc was funded by the African Biomedical Engineering Mobility (ABEM) Scholarship. He also received awards such as the UCT International Student Award (2019), UCT Foundation Contingency Award (2020) and the Faculty Research Committee Postgraduate Publication Incentive Award (2021). Martin is currently doing his PhD studies at the Mechanobiology Institute, National University of Singapore (MBI-NUS).