Jenny Hill is a global public health scientist with more than 35 years of dedicated experience in malaria research and control. With a master’s in Medical Parasitology from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and a PhD in Malaria in Pregnancy from the University of Amsterdam, she has dedicated her career to advancing evidence-based solutions to combat malaria in vulnerable populations. Currently, Jenny serves as Deputy Head of the Malaria Epidemiology Unit and Chair of Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine’s (LSTM’s) Research Ethics Committee.

In her early career Jenny developed community-based malaria control programmes which distributed insecticide-treated nets across Kenya, Zambia, Namibia, and Botswana as part of UNICEF child survival initiatives. Since joining LSTM in 1995, she has led significant projects, serving as Deputy Director of the Department for International Development funded Malaria Consortium and as Project Manager of the Bill & Melinda Gates-funded Malaria in Pregnancy Consortium where she managed a $32 million research portfolio. As a member of the Malaria in Pregnancy Consortium she contributed to research that led to World Health Organisation recommendations on the use of artemisinin-based combination therapies for treating malaria in the first trimester and monthly dosing with sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine for intermittent preventive treatment in pregnancy, adopted in national policies across malaria-endemic countries in Africa.

Jenny’s research focuses on pragmatic trials and implementation research aimed at optimising the delivery of and access to malaria interventions for vulnerable groups, particularly pregnant women and young children. This research explores integrated strategies across maternal and child health programs and community-based initiatives in diverse epidemiological and health systems contexts.

Jenny currently leads the Post Discharge Malaria Chemoprevention (PDMC) Saves Lives Consortium, funded by European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership-3, which is focused on post-discharge malaria chemoprevention for children hospitalised with severe anaemia. The consortium uses formative research and sustained stakeholder engagement to promote the adoption and implementation of post-discharge malaria chemoprevention in Benin, Kenya, Malawi, and Uganda. Through two implementation trials in Benin and Kenya, co-designed with key stakeholders, it aims to identify optimal delivery and adherence strategies for post-discharge malaria chemoprevention for scale-up.

Additionally, Jenny leads mixed method evaluations and policy research as part of collaborations with partners in Burkina Faso, DRC, Kenya, Mali, Uganda, Italy, France, and Switzerland. Through the INTEGRATION project, she is evaluating whether combining the delivery of intermittent preventive therapy in pregnancy with seasonal malaria chemoprevention campaigns for children in addition to antenatal clinics is an acceptable, feasible and cost-effective strategy that will boost coverage of intermittent preventive therapy. In the SAFIRE project, she is exploring new combinations of antimalarials for treating malaria during the first trimester of pregnancy.

Jenny is also leading longitudinal qualitative studies as part of two new trials on novel malaria vaccine delivery strategies for children, which integrate malaria vaccination with seasonal malaria chemoprevention in Burkina Faso and Mali (IMVACS) and Chad (INTEGREVAC). These studies will explore the dynamics of healthcare utilisation and behavioural impacts of these strategies over time to inform policy decision-making on the efficient deployment of malaria vaccines in areas with seasonal malaria transmission. Recently, she also completed the STOPMiP-2 study, which evaluated a Ministry of Health pilot programme of intermittent preventive treatment with dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine to prevent adverse birth outcomes in Papua, Indonesia. The results of this study led to national policy adoption, and the strategy is now being rolled out across endemic areas in Indonesia.