Dr. Stephen Magesa is the Director of vector control operations at RTI International’s U.S. Agency for International Development in Tanzania.
Magesa holds a doctorate degree in epidemiology from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, a master of science degree in medical parasitology from the University of London, and a bachelor of science degree in zoology/ecology from the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. He also earned an MBA from a joint program between Maastricht School of Management and the East and Southern African Management Institute in the Netherlands and Tanzania, respectively.
Magesa is an expert in malaria vector control with more than 27 years of experience in malaria research, prevention and control programs in Africa, including Tanzania, Rwanda and Kenya. From 2010 to 2013, Magesa successfully managed as RTI’s chief of party indoor residual spraying operations supported by the U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative in Rwanda and Kenya.Prior to RTI, he served as the center director for the National Institute for Medical Research, Amani Medical Research Center, a leading malaria research center in Africa. He oversaw the center’s Africa-wide entomological and parasitological research, and fieldwork related to vector control technologies, vector ecology and insecticide resistance. He previously served as a member of the World Health Organization Pesticide Evaluation Scheme (WHOPES) working group, and he is currently an alternate member of the Technical Review Panel of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
In Tanzania, RTI collaborates with the national malaria control program to establish, scale-up and maintain comprehensive malaria vector control operations, including indoor residual spraying of households with insecticide and distribution of insecticide-treated bed nets, as well as strengthening disease surveillance systems to better monitor malaria morbidity and mortality and respond to malaria outbreaks in a more-timely fashion.
Dr. Magesa has received a number accolades for his exemplary work in this field of Malaria and another vector borne diseases in the East Africa Region. In 2014, he was awarded Tanzania’s National Best Health Scientist Award and National Health Innovation Award for his dedication to preventing and controlling malaria and other vector-borne diseases in Tanzania.