Deborah Fasesan is a Microbiologist at the Centre for Genomic Research and Innovation located at the National Biotechnology Development Agency under the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology, Nigeria. She holds a Bachelors and Master’s degree in Microbiology, and is currently pursuing a PhD in Microbiology at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. She has been opportuned to attend a number of bioinformatics training, which has given her the pedestal to teach members of staff as well as students on several introductory bioinformatics topics. In 2015, she visited the Institute of Genomic Biology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (United States) as an Intern, under the platform of H3AbioNet sponsorship; where she worked with seasoned experts in High Performance Biological Computing (HPCBio) Group in her research on evaluation of microbial population of leg ulcers from Sickle Celled Disease patients in the outcomes of compression therapy treatment, using metagenomics strategy.  She contributes to the H3ABioNet Newsletter by setting up interviews with node PIs and writes up a segment of the newsletter known as “Meet the PI”. She also served as a teaching assistant for IBT and Intermediate H3ABioNet courses.

Dr. Segun Fatumo is an Assistant Professor of Genetic Epidemiology and Bioinformatics at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and MRC/UVRI Uganda. He is also an adjunct Senior Scientist at the H3Africa Bioinformatics Network (H3ABioNet) Node at the Centre for Genomics Research and Innovation, National Biotechnology Development Agency (CGRI-NABDA) in Abuja, Nigeria. Segun was originally trained as a Computer Scientist but his research now largely focuses on the genetic impact of communicable and non-communicable diseases in Africa. He is actively involved in capacity building across Africa including teaching and/or postgraduate supervision at the University of Sciences, Techniques, and Technology of Bamako (USTTB) Mali, and Covenant University Nigeria. He received postdoctoral training in genetic epidemiology at the University of Cambridge and Wellcome Sanger Institute and a postdoctoral fellowship in Bioinformatics at the University of Georgia, Athens, USA. Prior to that, He had postgraduate training in applied Bioinformatics at the University of Cologne, Germany and Ph.D. in Computer Science (Bioinformatics specialization) from Covenant University, Nigeria. During his Ph.D. Programme, Segun developed a model which identified twenty-two (22) potential novel drug targets against malaria, some of which have been tested and validated experimentally. Segun is the Founder and Pioneer President of the Nigerian Bioinformatics and Genomics Network. He was the immediate past vice-president of the African Society for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (ASBCB) and where I play a prominent role in the development of bioinformatics and genomics in Africa. 

ZAINAB KASHIM is a Senior Scientific Officer at the Centre for Genomics Research and Innovation, National Biotechnology Development Agency (NABDA), Abuja, Nigeria. She has a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Microbiology from Usman Danfodiyo University, Sokoto, Nigeria and Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria respectively. She holds a second Masters in Environmental Science with research focused on Genomic context analytics of genes for Universal Stress Proteins in Petroleum-Degrading Alcanivorax at University of South Africa, Pretoria, where she applied the bioinformatics skills (Visual Analytics) she had learnt over the years. She has been a teaching assistant in the H3ABioNet Introductory Bioinformatics course since inception (2016). She recently participated in the H3ABioNet 16sRNA Microbiome Intermediate Bioinformatics Course (INT_BT 2019), where she gained a lot of skills. She works as the Secretariat for the Sustainability and Outreach Work Package.