Patience Kiyuka is a PhD student under the Initiative to Develop African Research Leaders (IDeAL) at KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme, Kilifi. She is registered at Open University; the UK and her PhD project seeks to understand the role of complement in antibody-dependent immunity to Plasmodium falciparum.

In 2015 she obtained a Masters of Science degree in Infectious Diseases from London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The Commonwealth Scholarships funded her MSc studies. Patience completed her undergraduate studies in 2010 from Kenyatta University in Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry. She has extensive experience in biomedical research and has spearheaded several research projects, including molecular epidemiology of various respiratory viruses to understand their transmission dynamics. Patience has authored and co-authored several publications in peer-reviewed journals, presented in many conferences and was most recently appointed as a member of the KEMRI Scientific Ethics Review Unit.

A novel scalable public engagement tool: taking KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research virtual laboratory to young children aged 10-14 years using immersive technology

Public engagement by researchers is vital if the public is to understand and appreciate science. Immersive technology that involves using Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) is poised to profoundly transform the way science is communicated to the general public. Immersive technology allows the users to “immerse” themselves to varying degrees to the artificial environment which may be a simulation of some form of reality or attempt to create an artificial world that a person can experience and explore interactively by wearing a helmet, headset or goggles. Although relatively new, the technology has been used in Europe to promote understanding of Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) through projects such as the F1 in Schools STEM challenge https://www.f1inschools.com and Labster whereby students are given access to a realistic laboratory experience (https://www.labster.com). To the best of our knowledge, there is no documented evidence of VR usage as a tool for public engagement of research in Africa. We propose to use immersive software platforms to create a virtual KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research laboratory experience to allow children aged 10-14 years to visualize what it means to work in an intellectually stimulating environment. Our approach will be to engage the students, teachers, and parents in the content generation that best suits our target age group. By communicating science through Virtual Reality, we hope to spread awareness, increase understanding of research, and inspire young scholars to consider STEM careers options. We are hoping to get children to have fun wearing headsets and experiencing science through Virtual Reality while learning and appreciating research.