Stephen Kanyerezi

Stephen Kanyerezi is a PhD student in Bioinformatics at the African Centre of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Data Intensive Sciences (ACE), Makerere University, and a Bioinformatician at Uganda's Central Public Health Laboratories. His work focuses on pathogen genomics, genomic epidemiology, and the development of bioinformatics workflows to strengthen infectious disease surveillance and outbreak response. His research interests include viral and bacterial genomics, metagenomics, antimicrobial resistance, and the application of next-generation sequencing in public health. He has contributed to the genomic investigation of high-priority pathogens, including Ebola viruses, mpox, HIV, cholera, and antimicrobial-resistant bacteria, while developing reproducible analysis pipelines to support national and regional laboratory systems. Stephen is actively involved in training and mentorship, contributing to bioinformatics capacity building across Africa through workshops and collaborative initiatives. He has authored peer-reviewed publications in pathogen genomics and public health bioinformatics and has received competitive research funding and international recognition for his contributions to genomic surveillance. His current PhD research aims to leverage integrated genomic and metagenomic approaches to improve the understanding of emerging infectious diseases and strengthen evidence-based public health decision-making.