Chairperson and Executive Director

Mercury Shitindo is a distinguished bioethicist, researcher, and global ethics advocate with over 21 years of progressive experience in advancing ethical  standards across research, healthcare, and education. As the key founder and Executive Director of the Africa Bioethics Network (ABN), she spearheads initiatives to promote ethical research practices and bioethical discourse across the African continent.

In her global leadership roles, Mercury serves as a WHO Consultant, supporting the Secretariat of the Ethics Review Committee (ERC) by assisting technical units in protocol submission and review, assessing protocols for ethical compliance, and contributing to the Secretariat's services, including training and guidance development. Mercury is also an Ethics Expert for the European Commission's Horizon Europe Ethics Appraisal Scheme and holds advisory positions on several prestigious boards, including the BCA-WA-ETHICS II Project Advisory Board, the Global Health Partnerships (formerly Tropical Health and Education Trust - THET) Program Quality Committee, eLife's Global South Advisory Committee for Open Science, and the Training Advisory Committee for the Scaling Up Capacity to Support Clinical Trials in the East African Community (SCALE-IT).

Her commitment to global ethics extends to her membership in key international working groups, including the Regulatory and Ethics Work Stream (REWS) for the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH) and the Ethics and Data Sharing Working Group for the Public Health Alliance for Genomic Epidemiology (PHA4GE). As Co-founder and Co-Editor-in-Chief of the African Journal of Bioethics, Mercury has significantly advanced scholarly publishing in the field. She is also a co-founder of the Centre for the Sustainability of Digitally Enabled Health (SHADE), an interdisciplinary center dedicated to advancing sustainable AI-enabled health solutions.

Mercury maintains an active research portfolio that showcases her diverse interests and expertise. She is currently engaged in a Wellcome-funded study on sustainable health research and leads WHO-funded research examining attitudes toward data-driven health research in Kenya and Senegal. Her doctoral research focuses on reproductive technologies across Sub-Saharan Africa, specifically in Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, and Senegal. She serves as a co-investigator for the Comprehensive Approach for Resilience and Empowerment in Colorectal Cancer Patients (CARE-CRC) and leads the ORCID Bioethics Community of Practice in Sub-Saharan Africa as Principal Investigator. In the realm of digital health ethics, she has pioneered research on the environmental sustainability of AI health research in Kenya and Senegal.

Beyond her research endeavors, Mercury is an accomplished curriculum developer and trainer, recognized for designing and delivering training programs tailored to research ethics committees, healthcare professionals, and research administrators. She serves as a Technical Expert Consultant for Global Impact on the Advancing Health Online (AHO) initiative and as an Advisory Ethical Research Consultant at the Busara Center for Behavioral Economics. Mercury also plays a pivotal role in mentorship and capacity-building initiatives, including the BEACON Mentorship Program under the ABN-UNESCO partnership, which aims to nurture the next generation of bioethics professionals.

Mercury’s contributions continue to shape ethical research practices, foster equitable healthcare delivery, and address pressing bioethical challenges in Africa and beyond.