Sam is a Principal Investigator at the KEMRI/Wellcome Trust Programme, Nairobi, a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Oxford (UK), and an Honorary Lecturer at the Department of Paediatrics, University of Nairobi, Kenya. He is a consultant paediatrician with Dphil in Clinical Medicine from the University of Oxford, UK. His research interest is in severe febrile illnesses in children specifically in malaria, bacterial infections, and sepsis (consequence of severe infection) and spans surveillance, clinical epidemiology, clinical trials, comparative effectiveness research, quality improvement, and research translation. He has an interest in understanding effectiveness of treatments, risk of adverse outcomes in admitted children, and design and evaluation of appropriate interventions.

His current studies include safety and impact evaluation of the WHO-approved malaria vaccine, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) surveillance to understand it’s burden and appropriate surveillance strategies in hospitals and is also investigating application of digital technology for quick identification (triage) of sick children arriving at hospitals. He is a peer reviewer for several medical journals, Associate Editor of BMC Medicine journal, provides technical consultation to the World Health Organization (WHO), and is a member of technical working groups (TWG) at Kenya’s Ministry of Health. He supervises several postgraduate students.