Isabel Potani (US-Canada 2021)
Isabel Potani (29) is currently pursuing a PhD in Nutritional Sciences with Global Health specialization at the University of Toronto and aims to graduate in 2023. Her research is aimed at improving treatment of severe malnutrition by understanding the challenges, limitations of ready-to-use therapeutic feeds and developing an optimized version of the therapeutic feed. She was recently awarded the 2021 SickKids Global Child Health Catalyst Grant to lead a research project to develop and test an optimized ready-to-use therapeutic feed in Malawi.
Isabel was born and raised in Malawi. She earned a hard-won spot at the University of Malawi where she completed a BSc in Nursing. Isabel also obtained an MSc in human nutrition at the University of Glasgow under the Commonwealth Full Scholarship.
Isabel has over 10 years’ experience in child nursing and nutrition research and is also the Lead Scientific Coordinator for Malawi’s malnutrition network. She has co-authored over 12 publications to date, one of which was presented at the WHO and informed use therapeutic feeds for severe malnutrition. In 2020, Isabel was also listed as one of 100 outstanding nurse leaders globally by Women in Global Health. Her goal is to continue fighting malnutrition in low-income countries while based that a University, the WHO, or UNICEF.
At age 19, Isabel became Nurse-in-charge of the largest referral malnutrition unit at Malawi’s Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital, where she helped reduce the mortality rate from 20% to less than 5%. Isabel also co-lead two malnutrition studies in rural Sierra Leone while working for Tufts University. While working in Sierra Leone, she also started to raise her then-6-week-old daughter for 19 months until both studies were successfully completed.
Back in Malawi during the coronavirus pandemic, Isabel has been working one day a week at a referral malnutrition unit to keep her finger on the pulse of nursing. Isabel was also awarded the University of Toronto COVID-19 Student Engagement Award to write an opinion paper on clinical nutrition care challenges in low-resource settings during the COVID-19 pandemic. “While research is important,” she says, “its translation to policy is the ultimate goal.”
In 2022 she was awarded the Schlumberger Faculty for the Future award. The Schlumberger Foundation supports outstanding women from low- and middle-income countries who are pursuing higher education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).
