ABOUT Sheillah Simiyu

Sheillah works on Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) within the Urbanization and Wellbeing Unit. She is currently involved in studies aimed at understanding enteric disease transmission among children, developing a research agenda on hand hygiene in public settings, evaluating hygiene interventions among persons with disabilities and older persons, evaluating water and sanitation supply in low-income settlements, and hand hygiene interventions in humanitarian settings and low-income urban populations. Previously, she managed the Fecal Waste Management project in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, was a Research fellow in the DFID-funded Sanitation and Hygiene Applied Research for Equity (SHARE 3) consortium, a co-investigator on a study investigating the contamination of infant food in Kisumu, and a principal investigator in a study on shared sanitation in Kenya and Ghana. 

Sheillah has a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Studies (Kenyatta University), a Master’s degree in Public Health (Kenyatta University), and a Ph.D. in Public and Development Management (Stellenbosch University).

Prior to joining APHRC, she was a postdoctoral fellow on the ‘Safe Start’ trial, a cluster randomized controlled trial on WASH and Nutrition implemented by the Great Lakes University of Kisumu in collaboration with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Sheillah has been a lecturer (in full time and part-time capacities) and mentor at the Great Lakes University, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science and Technology, and at Kenyatta University where she supervised undergraduate and master’s level students.  She has worked on water, sanitation and hygiene issues for over 10 years, consulting and working with organizations including Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor (WSUP), World Vision, Action Against Hunger, SNV, and AMREF. She is interested in health outcomes of WASH across the life course and various population groups and is passionate about finding practical solutions to the health of vulnerable communities in urban and rural areas.

Aside from work, she enjoys the outdoors and a good laugh. Her Twitter handle is @shyillah. A list of her publications is available through her ORCiD.