Kamuzu University of Health Sciences

Olive Mbekwani-Kalata is a recipient of the African Mental Health Research Initiative (AMARI) PhD Fellowship and will be pursuing her doctoral studies at the Kamuzu University of Health Sciences (KUHeS). She is a health systems and policy researcher with a background in Nursing and Midwifery and brings over a decade of experience from Malawi’s public health sector.

Olive currently serves as a Policy Fellow with the Policy Unit at the Malawi-Liverpool-Wellcome (MLW) Research Programme, where she contributes to advancing evidence-informed decision-making across various levels of the health system. Her PhD research focuses on integrating mental health services into routine primary healthcare across the continuum of pregnancy in Malawi. Through this work, she aims to influence sustainable mental health policy reform and strengthen maternal care systems across sub-Saharan Africa.