Mastewal Worku

Junior Faculty Trainee

Dr. Mastewal Worku is a Public Health Specialist and Epidemiologist with more than a decade of experience in malaria epidemiology, disease surveillance, malaria elimination, implementation research, and public health emergency management. She currently serves as a Researcher at the Amhara Public Health Institute (APHI), Ethiopia, where she conducts operational and implementation research to generate evidence that strengthens public health disease prevention, surveillance, and control strategies.

She earned her PhD in Public Health from Bahir Dar University, where her doctoral research examined the spatiotemporal patterns, drivers, and prediction of malaria resurgence in the Amhara Region of Ethiopia. Her research integrates epidemiology, spatial epidemiology, geographic information systems (GIS), remote sensing, climate and environmental data, statistical modeling, and disease forecasting to support climate-informed malaria early warning systems and evidence-based decision-making for malaria control and elimination. She is also a Junior Faculty Trainee in the first cohort of the Urban Malaria Programme, contributing to research on urban malaria epidemiology and vector-borne disease control.

Previously, Dr. Mastewal served as the Regional Malaria Elimination Program Coordinator for the Amhara Region, where she led the implementation of Ethiopia's National Malaria Elimination Strategy and coordinated malaria prevention, surveillance, case investigation, outbreak response, and elimination activities across all levels of the health system. She has extensive experience collaborating with national and international partners, mentoring public health professionals, and contributing to multidisciplinary malaria research. She has also participated in the EPIDEMIA Project, a collaborative initiative with South Dakota State University (USA), focusing on malaria forecasting, climate-informed early warning systems, and predictive analytics for malaria prevention and control.