I am a microbiologist with special interest in research and human capacity building promoting control of the global spread of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Currently I am working as a senior scientist and project coordinator in the AMRIWA project “Antimicrobial resistance in West Africa” (https://www.helsinki.fi/en/researchgroups/amriwa) at the Department of Microbiology and Department of Medicine, University of Helsinki. In this multidisciplinary project we explore the oc­cur­rence, sources and pre­ven­tion of an­ti­mi­cro­bial res­ist­ance in West Africa by fol­low­ing the flow of AMR genes between hu­mans, an­im­als and en­vir­on­ment. In the new EU-funded SEBA project “Strengthening expertise and bioinformatics to control antimicrobial resistance in West Africa” we will improve the quality of higher education in Benin and Burkina Faso, enabling them tackle the challenge of AMR.

I have a very versatile experience in microbiology research both at the University of Helsinki and elsewhere as well as work experience outside academia. For my PhD (1997), I did research on nitrogen-fixing bacteria in Finland, in the USA (University of Tennessee) and in England (University of York). As a post-doc, I studied environmental microbial diversity and cyanobacteria in Finland. At the Finnish National Institute for Health and Welfare (2005-2011), I worked on food-poisoning bacteria and also directed a four-year joint research project “Epidemiology of water- and foodborne bacterial infections in Burkina Faso (West Africa) - strategies for sustainable national public health management”. I have worked as a lecturer in both classroom and laboratory settings and acted as a degree project supervisor. I also hold a degree in Management and Leadership (JET, Haaga-Helia 2009). In 2014, together with microbiologist colleagues, we set up a new consultancy group Co-op Bionautit. The team of four Bionauts was among the semifinalists in the Helsinki Challenge idea accelerator competition, organized by the University of Helsinki in 2015-2016.