News - The Biostatistics Programme graduates 5 more Candidates

The Biostatistics programme is proud to have graduated 5 more candidates; 1 Masters and 4 Post Graduate Diploma graduates. It was on 10th August 2016 at the Great Hall, Chancellor College when the programme registered its 18th masters graduate and first 4 Post Graduate Diploma graduates at a graduation function that was presided over by the Vice Chancellor of the University of Malawi, Prof. John Saka.

The 18th MSc graduate is Halima Sumayya Twabi who prepared a thesis titled "Modeling length of Hospital stay for TB treated In-Patients at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital: An application of competing risks modeling" that was supervised by Dr. Mavuto Mukaka. She successfully defended her thesis on 17th December 2015 before the Faculty of Science at Chancellor College. Halima joined the Biostastics programme in November 2012 and she joins Agness Thawani of 2010 (1st) intake as second female masters graduate in the programme.

The 4 Post Graduate Diploma graduates are Andrew Bauleni, Vitumbiko Chijere-Chirwa, Abigail Simkoko, and Pachalo Chizala. Andrew and Vitumbiko joined the programme in 2010 and after finishing coursework in 2011 they prepared and presented respective thesis proposals titled "A Bayesian analysis of cyclist and pedestrian injury severity on Malawian roads" and "The effect of living arrangements on subsequent mortality in older people of rural Northern Malawi." Their supervisors were respectively Assoc. Prof. Dr. Jimmy Namangale and Dr. Jupiter Simbeye. After staying in the programme for 6 years without substantial progress on research work as appreciated by both the students and supervisors, the programme graduated the candidates with Post Graduate Diploma. This followed their successful completion of coursework where each candidate had passed more than 10 modules as required by the programme.

On the other hand, Abigail and Pachalo joined the programme in September 2011 and 2012 respectively. After finishing coursework in 2012 and 2013 resp. they prepared and presented respective proposals titled "The Influence of Age-Cohort Differentials in Preference of Maternal Health Services in Malawi" and "Evaluation of the impact on power and sample size of misspecification of assumptions when using stratified randomisation." Their supervisors were respectively Dr. Mavuto Mukaka and Dr. Sarah White. After staying in the programme for resp. 5 and 4 years without remarkable progress on thesis work as appreciated by both the students and supervisors, the programme graduated the candidates with Post Graduate Diploma. Again, this was as a result of the candidates satisfying the requirements for the PG Diploma.

The programme congratulates the 5 candidates for the achievement. You will remain the pride of UNIMA Biostatistics programme wherever you go. We also thank the teaching team and supervisors for the success story.