Tracking Patients, Not Just Data: Faith Gloria Nantambi’s Journey from Field Research to Public Health Analytics
Faith Gloria Nantambi began her career on the front lines of public health research in Uganda, working as a Field Researcher with the Rakai Health Sciences Program on an HIV cohort study, interviewing community members, collecting data, and following up participants on antiretroviral therapy.
She knew R and Python could unlock more from the data she was gathering. What she needed was a structured path to apply them. Her earlier experience was mainly in SPSS, and she needed a clear way to connect data management, statistics, and real-world implementation.
Her training with the Data Science Institute became that turning point. She built the capabilities she needed most, especially data management and modelling, and gained the confidence to apply them in practice. The impact showed up quickly: while still studying, Faith was promoted into a Data Manager role.
She later joined a new organisation as a Community Engagement Officer, where she took on a very specific operational problem: retention of hypertension patients in care. By analysing screening and follow-up data, her team identified that many patients were not being tracked consistently after referral. Faith contributed to building a system to follow patients from screening through enrolment and onward, even across facility transfers, replacing the slow, error-prone process of searching handwritten registers.
Fewer barriers. Better continuity. And as Faith put it, the most important beneficiary is the patient.
Fewer barriers. Better continuity. And as Faith put it, the most important beneficiary is the patient.
That work opened further doors. Faith is now a fellow with IDM, the Infectious Disease Epidemiological and Mathematical Modelling Unit, where she is researching the hidden burden of Rift Valley Fever across East Africa, a disease significantly underreported and often detected too late. She is currently preparing findings for publication to inform policy discussions.
Her next step is an MSc, continuing the pathway she started and continuing to apply data science where it matters most.