Professor Haroun Mengech

Co-founder of partnership between Indiana University School of Medicine and Moi University School of Medicine

After attending high school at the foot of Mt. Elgon and studying medicine at the University of Nairobi, Professor Mengech went to the United Kingdom for 5 years to receive 2 advanced degrees at Edinburgh and New Castle Universities. When he returned, he first served as a lecturer at the University of Nairobi and then came to Eldoret to start the Moi University School of Medicine in 1988, which was a complex undertaking. He had a new approach to teaching medicine with this new medical school - he believed it should be innovative and community-based with less emphasis on big lectures and more encouragement of students to do their own research. He has a son who works in Nairobi, a daughter who attended Dartmouth and Johns Hopkins and who now works for USAID in Addis Ababa, and 2 children in primary school. He enjoys playing golf and mountain climbing and has climbed Mt. Elgon many times, Mt. Kenya twice and Mt. Kilimanjaro once.