Is a research fellow of the London School of tropical Medicine and Hygiene fulltime based in Kwale south coast of Kenya under the TUMIKIA Project. She has a passion for research on parasitic diseases which are prevalent in the tropics but have largely been neglected yet they impact on the quality of life among infected individuals. Her research interest is in immuno-epidemiology of these parasitic diseases, with a focus on understanding the immunological mechanisms underlying helminth-malaria co-infection and helminth control.

She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology and a Masters in Applied Parasitology from the University of Nairobi. Recently, she defended her doctorate of Philosophy (PhD) in Public Health under THRiVE/Wellcome Trust fellowship at Makerere University, Uganda. Her PhD thesis explored the impact of deworming on the risk of malaria. The results showed that deworming children in high malaria transmission areas may not have an impact on incidence and prevalence of malaria. For her postdoctoral fellowship, Stella plans to explore hookworm epidemiology using molecular methods. This fellowship will refine available molecular tools which can be used to access the gains that have been made to control soil transmitted helminths (STH). This fellowship is embedded in the TUMIKIA study.