Profile Alex Ezeh: bringing world-class research home

He was the fi rst person in his family to go to a secondary school, the second person in his Nigerian village to go to university, and as the fi rst head of the Kenya-based African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC) Alex Ezeh is transforming the way research is done in and for Africa. Unsurprisingly, he’s a remarkable man to talk to. Intense yet charming, the thing that really hits home is the clarity of his vision for development in Africa, the role of the APHRC in that development, and the power with which he communicates that vision. “He is a unique African driven by the ambition to improve the volume, relevance, and quality of research in Africa by Africans or Africanists that ultimately improves the wellbeing of Africans”, says Moses Oketch, of the University of London’s Institute of Education in the UK. It was The Lancet’s pleasure to catch up with Ezeh during a recent trip to London for the Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa. Mehr