Celebrating a Major Milestone: Dr. Nyasha Dzavakwa Successfully Defends Her PhD

The VITALITY Trial team is proud to congratulate our Trial Coordinator, Dr. Nyasha Dzavakwa, who recently successfully defended her PhD thesis with no corrections. Her research focused on treatment adherence among adolescents living with HIV in Harare, Zimbabwe, and the examiners praised the depth and real-world relevance of her work.

Dr. Dzavakwa has also been awarded a highly competitive postdoctoral fellowship with the Southern Africa Research Capacity Network (SOFAR). During the fellowship, she will consolidate outputs from her PhD, complete analyses from her digital adherence intervention trial using machine learning approaches, and launch a pilot neuroimaging study investigating cognitive impairment among young people with perinatally acquired HIV.

This achievement reflects the VITALITY Trial’s strong commitment to capacity building and research training. Since September 2021, MSc and PhD students in Zimbabwe and Zambia have been recruited and jointly supervised by scientists across the consortium, strengthening local scientific and research capacity.

We are proud to celebrate Dr. Dzavakwa’s achievement and look forward to the continued impact of her research.