Elfriede Mamie Fatmata Kormawa, known to her colleagues as Elfi, is a Research Fellow in Maternal Health at King’s College London. Based in Sierra Leone and working within the PAPAGAIO programme, she is undertaking a PhD through the NIHR PAPAGAIO scholarship, with a focus on strengthening the management of hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, including pre-eclampsia, in low-resource settings.
Her PhD is structured around three interconnected pieces of work. The first is a James Lind Alliance Priority Setting Partnership (PSP) on hypertensive disorders of pregnancy in Sierra Leone and Zambia, for which Elfi serves as Joint Coordinator and Information Management Specialist. This initiative brings together women with lived experience, family members, healthcare professionals and policymakers to identify the most pressing unanswered research questions, ensuring that future research reflects the priorities of those most affected. To date, the PSP has generated more than 300 research questions and uncertainties from stakeholders across both countries.
The second component involves mapping real-world care pathways in Sierra Leone to better understand how women with suspected or confirmed pre-eclampsia move through the health system. The third is a health economic evaluation examining the potential costs and benefits of introducing point-of-care placental growth factor testing in Sierra Leone, an area new to Elfi at the start of her PhD, but one she has embraced with characteristic curiosity.
From humanitarian work to maternal health research
Elfi’s path to research is rooted in a career spanning humanitarian and development work. Coming from that background, she describes the return to academia as one of the most interesting transitions she has made, not just intellectually, but in terms of the breadth of skills the PhD has asked of her.
“Beyond research itself, I am strengthening skills in project management, coordination, stakeholder engagement, budgeting, presentations, grant writing and communicating complex ideas to different audiences,” she reflects. “It feels like a very holistic form of professional development.”
For Elfi, the motivation to work in maternal health is deeply personal. As a Sierra Leonean, she is acutely aware of the toll that maternal mortality continues to take on women, families and communities in her country, one of the highest rates in the world. Becoming a mother herself has only deepened that sense of purpose.
“Becoming a mother has made the issue even more meaningful to me. It has given me a greater appreciation of both the joys and vulnerabilities that can accompany pregnancy and childbirth, and reinforced the importance of ensuring that women have access to safe, high-quality care.”
Research shaped by lived experience
One of the aspects of her work that Elfi finds most rewarding is the engagement she has with women and their partners through the Priority Setting Partnership. Creating a space where people with lived experience are empowered to shape a research agenda, rather than simply being subjects of it, has been, she says, one of the highlights of her PhD.
“Seeing people take ownership and drive decisions about project implementation has been incredibly rewarding.”
Conducting research in Sierra Leone brings its own practical challenges: electricity outages, connectivity issues, and infrastructure limitations are part of the daily reality. Elfi has adapted by planning for contingencies as a matter of course. “Living and working in this context has taught me to be creative and prepared to adapt, often with a back-up plan, and then a back-up for the back-up.”
Looking ahead
Elfi’s immediate goal is to complete her PhD and continue developing the skills needed to conduct high-quality, policy-relevant maternal health research. In the longer term, she hopes to work at the intersection of research, policy and practice: translating evidence into meaningful improvements for women in Sierra Leone and similar settings. She is also considering postdoctoral research as a route to deepening her research career.
Outside of work, she makes time for yoga and, above all, for her toddler, who, she says, keeps her grounded.