Ms Caroline Kithinji

Ms Kithinji is the head of training at the Scientific and Ethics Review Unit (SERU) of the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI). She has 17 years of experience in Research Ethics Committee (REC) administration and training.
Sustainable growth is her passion. Training and mentoring young professionals in Biomedical ethics and research ethics committee administration is her calling. Providing efficient and considered ethics review provides her with enormous gratification. At SERU, she has had the unique privilege to indulge in all of the above.
SERU, inaugurated in 2014, is a culmination of ten years of deliberate introduction of resources, both human and financial, into a secretariat that began with three individuals to a team of 14 well-trained professionals. Caroline has been instrumental in sourcing funds for the Unit, identifying, training and mentoring personnel employed at the Unit, developing SOPs and syllabi for training for committee members, researchers and secretariat in Kenya and the East and Central Africa region. As faculty of the CBEC-KEMRI Bioethics Training Initiative (CK-BTI), her pride and joy has been her participation in the development of a curriculum for a practicum for research administration.
Her educational background includes an MSc in Medical Parasitology from the London Institute of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and an MBE in Biomedical Ethics from the Sindh Institute of Health Sciences/Center of Biomedical Ethics and Culture (CBEC), Karachi, Pakistan. She has a BSc in Biochemistry and Zoology from the University of Nairobi, Kenya and a graduate certificate in International Research Ethics from the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, Baltimore.
Outside of work, she is a 1-part farmer, 1-part building contractor, 3-parts parent, 1-part wife, 1 part- entrepreneur. Too many parts?