Jean N. Hakizimana

Dr. Hakizimana is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Virology under the OR Tambo Africa Research Chair for Viral Epidemics, hosted at the SACIDS Foundation for One Health (SACIDS) of the Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA). He has  a Ph.D. in Veterinary Medicine from Sokoine University of Agriculture under the fellowship from the Regional Scholarship and Innovation Fund of the Partnership for skills in Applied Sciences, Engineering and Technology (RSIF-PASET), MSc in Veterinary Epidemiology and a BSc in Veterinary Medicine both from the Inter-States School of Veterinary Sciences and Medicine (EISMV), Cheikh Anta Diop University in Senegal. He secured two grants from the International Foundation for Science (IFS, Sweden) to support his Ph.D. work within Eastern and Southern Africa. He also received the RSIF Junior Investigator Research Award (JIRA). During his Ph.D., His research interests are on the genomic epidemiology of viral diseases that threaten health, food security and livelihood. In his research, He uses next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies and associated bioinformatics to provide insights into the transmission dynamics of viral diseases, the linkages of viral genetic structure and antigenic diversity by elucidating the mechanisms by which viruses alter themselves to avoid the hosts’ immune response. His postdoctoral fellowship at SACIDS Foundation for One Health focuses on pathogens genomics surveillance through viral genomics and bioinformatics analysis of genomics data obtained from next- and third generation sequencing of viral pathogens.