Evelyne Kestelyn

Oxford University Clinical Research Unit, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Evelyne Kestelyn is a public health specialist and clinical trialist with over 16 years of experience implementing and overseeing research programs in developing countries. She started her career in Rwanda where she spent over ten years managing research projects in collaboration with multiple institutions such as the Amsterdam Institute for Global Health and Development (AIGHD), the university of Liverpool and Emory University to name a few. Her main focus was on conducting clinical trials on HIV prevention such as microbicides studies and investigating issues surrounding prevention, diagnosis and treatment of HIV infection and other reproductive tract infections. Throughout her career, Evelyne has been dedicated to empowering women through and within research. She has been actively involved in Microbicides research and has been a strong advocate for multi-purpose prevention technologies to offer women options that protect them against multiple risks; HIV, STIs and/or pregnancy.

She joined the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit in January 2016 as Head of the Clinical Trials Unit. The Clinical Trials Unit manages research operations and governance for OUCRU, which includes Units in Viet Nam, Indonesia and Nepal. The CTU manages annually over 70 active research projects at 65 collaborating institutions, run by hundreds of research staff; it leads and shares trial management systems, explores and addresses ethical issues in clinical research and contributes to clinical trials legislation. The CTU’s current goal is to deliver high quality clinical trial data in a timely and cost-effective manner across the SEA region. Evelyne has a strong interest in Research Ethics and as an Ethox research associate, she set up a social science group involved in bioethics research around equitable data sharing, informed consent, human challenge models and ethnographical research in ICU settings and HCV research.