Personal information

Biography

I am initially a graduate in Mathematics with honours degree in mathematics from University of Kinshasa in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and was awarded a Postgraduate Diploma in Mathematical Sciences at the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) in Cape Town, South Africa in June 2005. I received a Master in Computer Science at University of Stellenbosch in South Africa. Through my PhD and Postdoctoral research at University of Cape Town, I have learnt a great deal about molecular biology and life sciences, particularly with respect to microbial pathogens at the Computational Biology Division of the Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine (IIDMM) in the department of Integrative Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Health Sciences. This has provided me with the ability to contribute to the overall expansion of the skills base in biotechnology and I have gained valuable experience and ideal skills in several aspects of bioinformatics applied to health sciences.

My current research focuses on integrating functional genomics and statistical data to analyze factors that contribute to infectious disease transmission dynamics in human populations at epidemiological and molecular levels. In addition to my research outputs, I have gained valuable experience in teaching and supervising students. I have been a lecturer at University of Kinshasa in DRC, and visiting lecturer at the African institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) and University of Cape Town in South Africa for the past few years, supervising undergraduate and postgraduate students. Internationally I took up an appointment in May 2014 at the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences, which is a Pan-African institute of Mathematical Sciences where I am running a research program between South-Africa and Ghana, contributing to research capacity building of African young scientists in mathematical modelling, data analysis, Bioinformatics and related applications. Currently I am a senior researcher, focusing mainly on translational bioinformatics and epidemiology where I am building the H3ABioNet-AIMS node, contributing to building skills base in biomedical and mathematical sciences across the African continent, supported by the National Institute of Health (NIH). H3AbioNet is a pan-African Bioinformatics network for the Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3A) project and I am the H3ABioNet-AIMS node principal investigator, contributing to building skills base in biomedical and mathematical sciences. In addition, I am highly involved in the development of the Sickle Cell integrated system at the Sickle Africa Data Coordinating Center (SADaCC), University of Cape Town.

I highly contributed to 29 papers, 1 chapter and 1 book published in high impact journals, with h-index = 13, more than 480 citations in the field of Computational Biology, Bioinformatics and Computer Networks, listed on Google Scholar. With more than 13 invited talks at local and international conferences or meetings. I have served as theses’ examiner in several South African universities and reviewed for several journals, including "PLoS ONE", "Global Health, Epidemiology and Genomics", "Infection, Genetics and Evolution (IGE)", "Nucleic Acids Research (NAR)", "Genome Medicine", "BMC Systems Biology", "Journal of Biomedical Semantics", "Journal of Computational Biology and Bioinformatics", "Briefings in Bioinformatics", "IEEE/ACM TCBB". It is worth mentioning that I organized training workshops in Introduction to Genomics Big Data Sciences and Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWAS) for complex diseases in Ghana and I was in organization team of the first annual African symposium on genome-wide association studies for complex disease at AIMS in Cape Town, South Africa. I have also reviewed grant proposals for the South African National Research Foundation (NRF), the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC).

Activities

Employment (7)

University of Cape Town: Rondebosch, Western Cape, ZA

2015-04-01 to present | Honorary Senior Lecturer (Integrative Biomedical Sciences)
Employment
Source: Self-asserted source
Gaston Kuzamunu Mazandu

African Institute for Mathematical Sciences: Muizenberg, Western Cape, ZA

2014-05-01 to 2017-09-30 | Research chair in Bioinformatics and Epidemiology (Mathematical Sciences)
Employment
Source: Self-asserted source
Gaston Kuzamunu Mazandu

University of Cape Town: Rondebosch, Western Cape, ZA

2014-02-01 to 2014-06-30 | Lecturer of Bioinformatics (Integrative Biomedical Sciences)
Employment
Source: Self-asserted source
Gaston Kuzamunu Mazandu

University of Cape Town: Rondebosch, Western Cape, ZA

2011-01-01 to 2013-12-31 | Postdoc fellow (Integrative Biomedical Sciences)
Employment
Source: Self-asserted source
Gaston Kuzamunu Mazandu

African Institute for Mathematical Sciences: Muizenberg, Western Cape, ZA

2009-08-15 to 2011-06-30 | Teaching Assistant (Mathematical Sciences)
Employment
Source: Self-asserted source
Gaston Kuzamunu Mazandu

Catholic University of Congo: Kinshasa, CD

2002-09-01 to 2004-08-31 | Lecturer (Economics and Development)
Employment
Source: Self-asserted source
Gaston Kuzamunu Mazandu

University of Kinshasa: Kinshasa, CD

1999-09-02 to 2004-08-31 | Lecturer (Mathematics and Informatics)
Employment
Source: Self-asserted source
Gaston Kuzamunu Mazandu

Education and qualifications (4)

University of Cape Town: Rondebosch, Western Cape, ZA

2008-04-15 to 2011-06-09 | PhD (Integrative Biomedical Sciences)
Education
Source: Self-asserted source
Gaston Kuzamunu Mazandu

Stellenbosch University: Matieland, Western Cape, ZA

2005-07-20 to 2007-12-11 | MSc (Computer Science)
Education
Source: Self-asserted source
Gaston Kuzamunu Mazandu

African Institute for Mathematical Sciences: Muizenberg, Western Cape, ZA

2004-09-02 to 2005-06-30 | Post Graduate Diploma (PGD) (Mathematical Sciences)
Education
Source: Self-asserted source
Gaston Kuzamunu Mazandu

University of Kinshasa: Kinshasa, Kinshasa, CD

1996-09-15 to 1997-12-11 | BSc Honours (Mathematics and Informatics)
Education
Source: Self-asserted source
Gaston Kuzamunu Mazandu