makachal

About: Mr Liberty Makacha is an applied geo-information scientist with a primary interest in the application of spatial sciences in elucidating disease causal pathways as well as spatial risk profiling for public health. A PhD Candidate at King’s College London (with visiting PhD studentship to Imperial College London), also a holder of an MSc Biostatistics and Epidemiology (majoring in Spatial Epidemiology) and a BSc Hons in Surveying and Geomatics, both from the Midlands State University in Zimbabwe. Liberty Makacha also hold an intermediate Bachelor of Accounting Science from the University of South Africa (UNISA). Currently engaged as a Research Scientist at Midlands State University, Department of Surveying and Geomatics, Place Alert Labs, with overlapping roles into Research Programs Management. The PALs research initiative at Midlands State University employs GIS, Remote Sensing, Computational Analytics, Spatial Statistics, and other spatial sciences techniques to understand Global Health phenomena including developing and validating new techniques for modelling the seasonal variation in geographical access to care as well as investigating the correlates between place specific factors that elevate risk for adverse maternal outcomes using Bayesian techniques. Liberty’s PhD is aimed at investigating context-specific causes of adverse perinatal health outcomes as modified by air pollution across contrasting sub-Saharan African (SSA) geographies. Through the deep phenotyping of pregnant women cohorts in African settings, the study will assess the impact of behavioral, geographic, and seasonal air pollution characteristics that moderate exposure severity. A sitting Zimbabwe Institute of Geomatics Education and Training Committee member with a special portfolio of enriching current higher education systems on the implementation and use of GIS and Remote Sensing in real time spatial data acquisitions.