“Many important discoveries are made merely by observing and contemplating what is experienced in everyday life.”
Roly Gosling a microbiologist and malaria epidemiologist from the UK, was the project leader for the Kilimanjaro Intermittent Preventive Therapy for Malaria in Infants Study in Tanga, Tanzania, from 2004 to 2008, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The study was part of a larger group called the IPTi Consortium, which is an Honorary group of universities throughout the world interested in preventing malaria in children under the age of one. He is also an Honorary Lecturer in the Department of Disease Control at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He practiced medicine in London at The Royal Free and University College Medical School from 2008 to 2010, and is currently working for the Gates Foundation in San Francisco, CA. (www.gatesfoundation.org)
The Interview
Roly is in the “Comings of Age” section of the book because he kept saying he wasn’t sure if his greatest epiphany was an epiphany or if it was really just called “growing up.” For him, it’s both. I had the privilege of seeing Roly at work among his staff and with patients in Tanga, Tanzania. He is so obviously a natural leader and caring physician, and he always wears the loudest shirts you’ve ever seen. We called him “the Mayor,” as every single person we came across greeted him and would talk to him about something that was on their minds. We conducted his interview on the back porch of his home in Tanga.
This is the roof where Dr. Gosling had his epiphany.
