Professor Margaret Gyapong is Director of the Institute of Health Research (IHR) and Coordinator of the Centre for Health Policy and Implementation Research (CHPIR) at the University of Health and Allied Sciences (UHAS) in Ghana.
Prof. Margaret Gyapong earned an MSc in Medical Anthropology Brunel University West London, Uxbridge, Middlesex, United Kingdom. She then went on to study for a PhD in the University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
She studied community views on the subject of lymphatic filariasis in northern Ghana for her Master’s thesis. She studied comparable topics in southern Ghana for her PhD and collaborated with other scientists to analyze the consequences of cultural beliefs and behaviors for disease prevention.
She has progressed through the ranks of research from research assistant to seasoned and globally famous scientist in the last few years.
She spent over 25 years as a researcher in the Ghana Health Service before joining the University of Allied Health in 2017. From 2005 to 2016, she was the founding Director of the Dodowa Health Research Centre, developing it from a tiny research station to an internationally respected research center. Her research interests include socio-cultural aspects of tropical diseases, implementation research, health systems, maternal and child health, and implementation research. Proffessor Gyapong is also a lead social scientist for COUNTDOWN (Calling time on Neglected Tropical Diseases). In Cameroon, Ghana, Liberia, and Nigeria, this partnership employs implementation research to overcome implementation gaps in the management of neglected tropical diseases.
Professor Gyapong has exhibited international leadership by participating on various task forces, steering committees, and working groups, including the World Health Organization, the Task Force for Global Health, the National Institute of Health Standing Committee in Washington, DC, and the EDCTP, to name a few. She has held Adjunct professorial and senior lecturer posts in academia at Georgetown University, Brunel University, and the University of Ghana, as well as supervising multiple masters and PhD students. She has over 60 peer-reviewed papers to her credit and serves as a reviewer and associate editor for a number of international magazines. She has also previously served as external examiner at the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa and at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
Margaret Gyapong, Awards
She was one of 12 women from across the globe to receive the first Heroines of Health award in 2017 for her efforts to raise awareness about the needs of women affected by neglected tropical diseases. TDR Global featured her a year later for some of her accomplishments in Implementation Research and work on neglected tropical illnesses. “I have a strong interest in female genital schistosomiasis. Many women suffer silently from the consequences of this disease, which presents as infertility, miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy and other gynaecological conditions” she says.
The EDCTP named Proffesor Margaret Gyapong as the Most Outstanding Female Scientist on October 18th, 2021 for her contributions, training, and mentorship in the fight against poverty-related illnesses.She was also recognized as one of 15 women by WHO/TDR who promote mentorship and collaboration among scientists working on infectious diseases in low and medium income countries. In May of the same year, she was ranked number 4 in the university of Health and Allied Sciences, number 13 in Ghana, and number 550 in Africa by the World Scientist and University Ranking 2021-AD Scientific Index 2021.