A health economist who has spent more than a decade contributing to closing the gap between public health research and the communities that need it most has been named among the Spring 2026 recipients of the Rose Service Learning Fellowship at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Dr Olakunle Ajayi, currently pursuing a Master of Public Health degree at Harvard Chan School, was selected for one of the university’s flagship community-engaged scholarship awards, which provides substantial research funding and institutional backing to researchers whose work is grounded in genuine partnership with communities and oriented towards practical public health impact.

His academic focus at Harvard spans health economics, outcome research, and health systems performance; building on a career that has taken him from portfolio management at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where he has managed portfolios worth millions of dollars in both public health program implementation and research.

The fellowship now returns him to Nigeria with a specific and urgent focus. His project will assess the readiness of primary healthcare facilities in Ekiti State and map the community-level barriers that prevent ordinary Nigerians from accessing care when they need it most.

The initiative goes beyond conventional facility inspections by weaving community voice into the process. Through stakeholder engagement and validation sessions with local residents, health workers, and facility officials, the project aims to construct a picture of healthcare readiness that is both technically rigorous and sensitive to what communities actually experience on the ground.

The findings are designed to be immediately useful. Relevant stakeholders will receive evidence telling them not only what exists within their facilities, but what is working, what is not, and which specific interventions are most likely to improve care for the people they serve.

Underpinning the project is a broader philosophy about the relationship between measurement and improvement. Dr Ajayi has argued consistently that many healthcare systems in low- and middle-income countries continue to invest significant resources without sufficiently robust mechanisms for understanding whether their facilities are genuinely prepared to deliver quality services.

Better measurement, in his view, is not merely a technical exercise. It is a foundation for accountability and a prerequisite for meaningful and lasting improvement.

His selection reflects growing international recognition both of that work and of a generation of Nigerian health professionals bringing deep local knowledge and global-standard training to bear on some of the continent’s most persistent public health challenges.

As the project moves into its field phase, it is expected to generate lessons that will resonate well beyond Ekiti State, feeding into national conversations about primary healthcare strengthening, service delivery reform, and the role of evidence in building a more equitable and effective Nigerian health system.