Fulbright scholar provides expert knowledge at NWU

Prof. Phil Gona, a biostatistician and population health scientist from the University of Massachusetts Boston (UMass Boston), will teach and conduct research at the North-West University’s Hypertension in Africa Research Team (Hart) in NWU’s Faculty of Health Sciences this academic year.

Prof. Gona is a scholar and scientist who has worked at Harvard T. Chan School of Public Health, Framingham Heart Study – a world-renowned centre for heart disease epidemiology, in the pharmaceutical industry conducting vaccine clinical trials, at UMass Medical School, and is currently a faculty member at UMass Boston in his home state of Massachusetts.

He will lecture and undertake epidemiological research on the NWU Potchefstroom campus as a Fulbright Scholar on sabbatical from UMass Boston to establish and enhance capacity among the academic staff, students, and fellows at Hart.

“We are delighted to have Phil in our midst during his sabbatical year from UMass Boston,” said Carina Mels, professor of physiology and research director for the Hypertension in Africa Research Team. Mels, who is the local institutional host for Gona, added, “In the few months since Phil has joined us, our faculty and post-graduate students have benefitted immensely from his gentle mentoring and teaching. He is a true and committed ambassador.”

Gona is a team scientist who collaborates with scientists from different fields to study chronic and communicable diseases like heart disease, HIV/Aids, and Covid-19. He’s an American Heart Association Fellow and a long-time collaborator on the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) project. The GBD is the most comprehensive effort to date to evaluate epidemiological levels and trends around the world. The Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of American Medical Association, and Journal of American Heart Association have all published Gona’s work (Google Scholar Citation H-Index of 74).

He is an associate statistical editor for Circulation Journal and a methodologist/scientific reviewer for the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute in the United States and the Patient-Centred Outcomes Research Institute in the United Kingdom.

Speaking on behalf of more than a dozen faculty in the Faculty of Health Sciences in which Hart is housed, Ruan Kruger, professor of physiology and current chair of Early Detection and Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease in Africa, commented, “As a faculty, under Phil’s guidance and mentoring, we, for the first time, submitted a $1.65 million NIH grant. This grant, had it been funded, would have studied the biochemical and cardiovascular consequences of severe Covid-19.

Even though our application was not successful, we feel confident that we can compete on the global stage by submitting future NIH grants. We are glad for the capacity building Phil has contributed to our institution.” said Kruger, who is also President of Childhood Hypertension Consortium of South Africa, and chair of the Next Generation Network of the South African Hypertension Society.

Gona is noted for his ability to break down complex mathematical concepts into little, easily consumable chunks for non-mathematics majors and then methodically reassemble the pieces to improve student internalisation and understanding. “Teaching is a contact sport,” said Gona to the NWU faculty, post-doctoral fellows, and post-grad students attending the first day of his advanced statistics methods course. “I use myself as a vehicle for transformative learning, incorporating my personal experiences and scholarship into my lectures to motivate learners.

“In my experience in teaching, learners feed off the enthusiasm that the instructor projects for the subject matter,” Gona said. Speaking on behalf of students taking Gona’s statistics methods course, Nonkululeko Navise, a PhD candidate who routinely consults with Prof. Gona on her dissertation, described his approach to teaching: “Prof. is a seasoned teacher, and it shows. He loves the material he teaches, and he is very generous in sharing it with his students. He projects a unique and palpable enthusiasm for statistics as a discipline. My colleagues and I enjoy every minute of his class – we have learnt quite a lot and wish we could have him again for a follow-up course.”

Gona’s skill in statistical methods allows him to participate in thesis and dissertation meetings and provide a statistical and methodological sounding board for post-graduate students and the faculty.
The Fulbright sabbatical is not the first visit to NWU for Gona. He first came to the Potchefstroom campus as a visiting scientist in 2012. During that visit, he developed and wrote the statistical and epidemiological considerations for The African Prospective study on the Early Detection and Identification of Cardiovascular disease and Hypertension (African-Predict) alongside Prof. Alta Schutte, then the director and founding principal investigator for the study.

In speaking of his return to Potchefstroom, Gona said, “I am excited to be back, helping advance and strengthen relationships between the people of the United States and South Africa. As a cultural ambassador of the United States, I am proud to promote international understanding and cooperation.”