Dr. Estelle Sidze is a PhD researcher with 15 years of experience conducting research, policy, and community engagement on health, specifically women’s and child health, within the African context. She currently leads the research portfolio on maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH) and the portfolio on adolescent and maternal mental health at the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC).

Over the past few years, Estelle has led critical studies to generate actionable evidence to empower regional action on women’s physical and mental health, including two pioneering studies: 1) The Grand Challenges- funded Sasa Mama Teen Project: Building Strong Minds for Stronger Adolescent Mothers in Nairobi slums which aimed to co-design and test the feasibility of an innovative youth-friendly toolkit with adolescent mothers living in the slums, and 2) the NIH-funded JAMO Project which aims to investigate the linkages between union formalization, kinship support, women’s mental health and children health and development outcomes.