A multidisciplinary mission to reach more minds.
We were founded on a simple belief: people living with epilepsy in Africa deserve information, support and treatment that fits the lives they actually lead.
Care built around people, not buildings
NeuroReach Africa began with a question that wouldn't go away: why do so many people living with epilepsy across Africa go without the care that already exists? The medicine is here. The knowledge is here. What's missing is the distance between them and the people who need them most.
We are multidisciplinary and community-driven. Our work is grounded in rigorous research, but it does not stay in the lab. We use the digital tools people already trust, such as mobile phones, messaging and simple apps, to close that distance, one conversation at a time.
We are beginning our work in Kenya and Zimbabwe, with plans to scale into other African countries as our model proves itself and our community grows.
Phyllis Kimani
Founder & Director, NeuroReach Africa · Principal Investigator, Kenya Epilepsy Research Programme · MPharm
Phyllis is a registered pharmacist with over 15 years of experience across community and hospital pharmacy, medicines optimisation, vaccination services and public health programmes in both the United Kingdom and Kenya. She is registered with the General Pharmaceutical Council (UK) and the Pharmacy and Poisons Board (Kenya).
Her commitment to epilepsy care is shaped by both her professional practice and her personal experience supporting children affected by seizure disorders, experiences that drive her work to improve awareness, reduce stigma and build practical support for families living with epilepsy.
She founded NeuroReach Africa to lead a multidisciplinary, multi-country research programme, bringing together pharmacists, clinicians, public health practitioners and community partners, into caregiver experiences, digital caregiver support tools and equitable access to epilepsy care, with active study arms in Kenya and Zimbabwe.
Building a team of clinicians, researchers, technologists and community partners across Africa.
Dr Stella Mwangi
Consultant Psychiatrist and Mental Health Lead, Kenya
Dr Stella Mwangi is a Nairobi-based consultant psychiatrist with close to two decades in medicine and specialist mental-health care. Her week moves between clinical leadership at a wellness and rehabilitation centre, consulting at established mental-health hospitals across the city, and teaching the next generation of psychiatry practitioners.
Her training is unusually broad: a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery, a Master of Medicine in Psychiatry and a Master of Public Health, all from the University of Nairobi, alongside certification as an addiction professional and further study in child and adolescent psychiatry and global mental health.
As NeuroReach Africa's mental health lead, Dr Mwangi brings the mental-health side of epilepsy into our work, because depression, anxiety and caregiver strain so often travel with seizures, and too often go unseen. She helps make sure the people and families we reach are supported in mind as well as in their epilepsy care.
Joseph Gatheru Mugo
Technology and Digital Health Lead
Joseph is a Kenyan technologist with over twelve years building software and digital systems across government, research and the non-profit sector. His work has ranged from data-collection and reporting platforms for international research institutes to digital systems supporting health programmes in Kenya.
He holds a Master of Science and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, with doctoral research in artificial intelligence. His expertise spans software development, data platforms, machine learning and cybersecurity.
At NeuroReach Africa, Joseph leads on technology and digital health, building and safeguarding the digital tools at the heart of our work, from the mobile education people use every day to the secure systems that carry our research data.
Valentine Ndiho
Programme and Operations Manager, Kenya
Valentine has spent the last six years inside the humanitarian and non-profit sector in Kenya, running the kind of complex, multi-partner projects where budgets, donor compliance and monitoring data all have to line up at once. She is as comfortable in a logframe as she is in a community meeting.
Her academic path bridges policy and people: a Master of Arts in International Relations from USIU-Africa and a Bachelor of Arts in Social Work from the Catholic University of Eastern Africa. Along the way she has trained and mentored teams of more than eighty staff.
At NeuroReach Africa, Valentine runs the engine room of our Kenya programme , activities, budgets, workplans and reporting, making sure that what we promise donors and what we deliver to communities are one and the same.
Caroline Kinyanjui
Human Resources and People Operations Lead, Kenya
Caroline is a Certified Human Resource Professional with over eight years of experience leading HR and people operations across multinational and professional-services organisations in Kenya and the wider region. She holds a Bachelor of Commerce in Human Resource Management, the CHRP certification, and is completing a Master of Business Administration with the University of East London.
Her career spans recruitment and onboarding, performance management, payroll, employee benefits, HR policy and compliance, and staff welfare, built across firms including Bowmans, Acciona and Isolux Corsán. She has set up and turned around HR functions for project offices spread across several African countries, managed work permits and relocation for international staff, and championed health, safety and labour-law compliance, giving her a strong grasp of the practical side of running a growing, multi-country organisation.
At NeuroReach Africa, Caroline leads human resources and people operations. She oversees recruitment and onboarding for the Kenya programme and the wider team, helps put fair and compliant HR policies and contracts in place as we grow, supports staff welfare and development, and brings order to the people-side of a multi-country research organisation working across Kenya, Zimbabwe and the United Kingdom. Her experience managing permits and onboarding for international and field-based teams is a strong fit for a programme that recruits research assistants, coordinators and collaborators across borders.
Mufaro Chitura
Pharmacist and Programme Coordinator, Zimbabwe
Mufaro is a registered Zimbabwean pharmacist based in Harare. Her career spans community and hospital pharmacy as well as pharmacy management, giving her a practical, end-to-end view of how medicines actually move from a dispensary shelf to a patient's daily routine.
She holds a BPharm (Hons) from the University of Zimbabwe and is registered with both the Pharmacists Council of Zimbabwe and the Medicines Control Authority of Zimbabwe, with a strong grounding in safe dispensing, patient counselling and regulatory compliance.
Mufaro leads NeuroReach Africa's Zimbabwe arm. She works alongside local clinicians and people living with epilepsy to shape education that fits the Zimbabwean context, and makes sure our research there is grounded in the realities of the clinics and households it hopes to support.
Paul Musandiyangana
Pharmacist and Research Associate, Zimbabwe
Paul is a registered Zimbabwean pharmacist based in Harare, with a Bachelor of Pharmacy with Honours from the University of Zimbabwe. He came into the profession through busy community and hospital pharmacy settings and went on to lead a pharmacy as manager.
In his management work he built and ran a medication reconciliation protocol that reduced discrepancies and medication-related harm and partnered with community organisations to widen access to medicines for underserved populations, including harder-to-reach specialty treatments.
At NeuroReach Africa, Paul supports the Zimbabwe arm and works as a reviewer on Mapping the Gaps, our systematic review of the epilepsy treatment gap in Zimbabwe and its drivers. Working alongside the Zimbabwe Site PI and the programme coordinator, he screens titles, abstracts and full texts, extracts data and carries out risk-of-bias assessment, bringing the same attention to detail and clinical judgement he applies in practice. He will be a named co-author on the Phase 1 outputs, and as the Zimbabwe work grows he will help connect the programme with pharmacists and clinicians on the ground.
Kevin Mungai
Community Engagement and Field Coordinator, Kenya
Kevin is a licensed Public Health Officer with more than five years on the frontline of community health in Kenya. In Kiambu County he has led health-education drives and disease-surveillance work, coordinated water, sanitation and hygiene programmes, and stepped in as a first responder when emergencies and disasters demanded it.
He holds a BSc in Environmental Health Sciences from Kenyatta University and is currently reading for an MSc in Public Health at the KEMRI Graduate School.
For NeuroReach Africa, Kevin is the bridge between the programme and the people it exists for. He builds the relationships with caregivers, community pharmacists and frontline health workers that turn an awareness campaign into a real conversation, and a research protocol into a welcomed visit.
Reene Indosio Kwatemba
Research and Programme Associate, Kenya
Reene is an early-career pharmacist who graduated from USIU-Africa, where she worked as a research assistant throughout her degree. Her student research earned a national award at the 2025 IPSF World Congress, a project she carried from idea to international podium.
Outside the lecture hall, she chaired her university's pharmacy students' association and represented students nationally through the Pharmaceutical Students' Association of Kenya, including running on-the-ground logistics for the IPSF Congress in Nairobi.
At NeuroReach Africa, Reene sits at the intersection of research and public education. She helps translate clinical evidence into plain-language epilepsy information, in English and Kiswahili, and brings a young pharmacist's eye to the materials we put into caregivers' and health workers' hands.
Elizabeth Ngele
Transcription and Translation Lead, Kenya
Elizabeth is a Kenyan communication specialist with deep experience in verbatim transcription, audio recording and editing, and English-to-Kiswahili translation. She holds a Bachelor of Journalism and Mass Communication from Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology, with training across broadcast and print journalism, corporate communication and public relations.
For several years she has worked as a Hansard reporter and officer, currently with the National Land Commission and previously with the Taita Taveta and Mombasa County Assemblies, producing accurate word-for-word records of public hearings, committee meetings and stakeholder forums, often under tight deadlines. Her translation work includes localising official public-facing documents from English into Kiswahili to widen access, and she has supported public participation forums and stakeholder communication throughout her career.
At NeuroReach Africa, Elizabeth leads transcription and translation for the Kenya studies. She provides professional English and Kiswahili translation of the study instruments, participant information sheets and consent forms, with back-translation and reconciliation, and she transcribes and translates caregiver interviews and focus group discussions accurately and on schedule. Her Hansard-trained ear for verbatim detail, and her experience making official information accessible in Kiswahili, keep the research faithful to what participants actually say, central to a genuinely bilingual study.
Evelyne Nduta Nyambura
Administration and Operations Coordinator, Kenya
Evelyne is the calm centre of a busy office. With several years of experience behind administrative desks in Nairobi, she has built a reputation for keeping records, schedules, onboarding and logistics flowing without fuss, the kind of quiet competence a growing organisation runs on.
She holds a BA in Sociology and Psychology from the University of Nairobi, and began her working life in counselling and psychosocial support, including volunteer service with the Kenya Red Cross, a background that still shapes how she looks after colleagues and visitors alike.
At NeuroReach Africa, Evelyne keeps the day-to-day running: diaries, documents, travel, suppliers and the dozens of small details that decide whether a field visit happens on time. Her work is rarely visible from the outside, and that is exactly the point.
A gap measured in millions of lives
In sub-Saharan Africa, an estimated 80% of people with epilepsy never receive the treatment they need. The reasons are stigma, distance, cost and a shortage of trained healthcare workers, not a lack of effective medicine.
Closing that gap doesn't start in a laboratory. It starts in a conversation, between a caregiver and a pharmacist, a patient and a peer, a community and the information it has been waiting for.
Why our approach works
Mobile phones reach further than clinics. Caregivers know things doctors don't. Communities heal what stigma broke. We combine those three truths into a model of care that is human first, and digital by design.