Susana is an epidemiologist with over 20 years experience in maternal and infectious disease epidemiology in low income countries. Seven years of which has been spent living and working sub-Saharan Africa. Her main focus of research is improving access to care to vulnerable and hard to reach communities. She completed her PhD in Zambia and also spent three years at the MRC-The Gambia Unit as trial coordinator to COSMIC - a trial aimed at bringing malaria health services closer to pregnant women living in rural areas in The Gambia, Benin and Burkina Faso. She has continued to work in West Africa and was involved in the monitoring and evaluating the scaling up of Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention (SMC) in 7 West African countries. She is now co-ordinating an implementation research project to optimise the delivery and effectiveness of SMC in children in 13 West and Central African countries (https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/research/centres-projects-groups/opt-smc ) .