Sophia Osawe is a Senior Manager, the Unit Lead for the Quality Assurance Unit, at the International Research Center of Excellence (IRCE) of the Institute of Human Virology, Nigeria (IHVN) and the Executive Director of Koukouvayia Consults (www.koukouvayiaconsults.com). She is currently a Principal investigator of four projects funded by EDCTP and NIH. Sophia has over 16 years’ experience in laboratory diagnostics, research, implementation science projects, capacity building and quality management systems. Sophia obtained her BSc (Hons) in Microbiology, a postgraduate training program in Medical Laboratory Science with specialization in Virology, a Master’s in Public Health, a Master’s in Business Administration and a PhD in Medical Microbiology and Immunology.

She recently concluded a project looking into COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in a community in Jos, Plateau state, with a team of researchers through funding from Public Health Alliance for Genomic Epidemiology (PHA4GE https://pha4ge.org/).

Sophia has co-authored over 20 peer reviewed manuscripts and presented several abstracts at local and international conferences. Sophia has led IHVN’s first medical laboratory (2017) as well as a total of 9 medical laboratories in Malawi (2020-2023) to achieve and maintain international accreditation in accordance with ISO 15189.