Editorial Board Member

Dr Emmanuel Okenwa-Vincent is a distinguished public health optometrist and global bioethicist with over 12 years of interdisciplinary experience in health systems research, planning, and implementation across East Africa. His academic and professional journey includes a PhD in Optometry (University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa), Master’s degrees in Global Bioethics (Anahuac University, Mexico – UNESCO Scholar), Health Planning and Management (University of Benin), and Public Health (University of Benin), and professional training in public health leadership. He has led and contributed to numerous child and adolescent health initiatives across Kenya, serving as a public health consultant for global health organizations such as CBM, Sightsavers, Fred Hollows Foundation, and Brien Holden Vision Institute. His research interests are on uncorrected refractive errors – particularly childhood and early onset myopia and its impact on academic performance and behaviour development in children of Black African descent, low vision in school-aged children, and the intersection of health equity, bioethics, and adolescent well-being.
Dr Okenwa-Vincent currently serves as the Dean of the School of Health Sciences and Chair of the Institutional Scientific Ethics Review Committee at Kaimosi Friends University, where he coordinates research capacity strengthening and postgraduate program development. He has been Principal Investigator to multiple national and institutional grants, and was recently awarded the prestigious Africa Research Excellence Fund (AREF) Fellowship as a Research Development Fellow at the Centre for Public Health, Queens University Belfast, in the UK, to investigate the impact of myopia on child development in Kenya. His expertise in ethical oversight, community-based participatory research, gender-transformative programming, and digital health innovations makes him uniquely positioned to co-lead complex implementation research projects focused on children's and adolescents' health and well-being.