Research
Work that survived review.
Consulting analysis and published research are held to the same standard here. Several methods we deploy for clients were first developed, reviewed and published in the work below.
Peer-reviewed publications
The full and continuously updated record is on Google Scholar and ORCID 0000-0002-7133-3318. Google Scholar, October 2026: 405 citations, h-index 12.
2025
Agglomerative hierarchical clustering of 11,589 records reported as lost to follow-up across 313 HIV clinics found six distinct profiles within one programme label.
2023
Estimation of HIV prevalence and burden in Nigeria: a Bayesian predictive modelling study
Subnational estimates used by the PEPFAR interagency team (USAID, CDC and the Department of Defense) and by the Government of Nigeria through the National Agency for the Control of AIDS.
2023
2022
2021
Moran's I and Getis-Ord Gi* on key-population data: the spatial methods later carried into the immunisation hotspot work.
2021
2019
A Delphi process with more than 200 researchers, implementers, policymakers and community representatives that agreed nine research priorities.
2016
2015
Preprints
Not yet peer reviewed, and labelled that way wherever they are cited.
2026
2026
2025
Forecasting inequity: predictive modeling exposes urgent gaps in pediatric HIV treatment in Nigeria
State-by-state Bayesian projections of paediatric HIV seroprevalence and unmet ART need, 2025 to 2030.
2020
Presentations, awards and funding
Funding and awards
UNICEF and Gavi, 2026: award of the national zero-dose predictive modelling consultancy for Nigeria, in support of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency.
Drobvia Inc., 2025: technical consultancy for LocustGuard, a real-time computer vision system that detects locust infestations in drone and robot imagery, built for agricultural resilience in sub-Saharan Africa. Dr Onovo designed and deployed its YOLOv8 detection models, with image, video and live-camera modules tuned to each operating environment, hosted it on Hugging Face, and handed it over with documentation and training so the client's engineers maintain and extend it. On its held-out validation images the model detected 93% of locusts (recall 0.93) at 93% precision.
Swiss National Science Foundation, 2020: grant no. 320030_192452 (CHF 1,008,000), University of Geneva. Dr Onovo's doctoral thesis proposal, on surveillance of HIV seroconversion and HIV treatment outcomes along the cascade of care among female sex workers in Nigeria, was developed into the full research proposal that won the award.
Collaboration
We co-author with academic and agency partners and welcome approaches on immunisation equity, spatial methods, survival analysis and the evaluation of AI decision tools in low-resource health systems.
Selected presentations
- EpidPredict: Bayesian forecasting with correlation-guided covariate selection and hallucination-resistant AI interpretation for PEPFAR HIV cascade metrics. Onovo A, Okechukwu E. E-poster EP265, AIDS 2026, the 26th International AIDS Conference.
- Mapping the future: leveraging Lasso regression and GWR to guide HIV testing and prevention strategies in Tanzania. Onovo A, Nondi JD, Majengo RI, Mtui E, Mrina R, Akom E, Agaba P. Poster TUPED353, AIDS 2024, the 25th International AIDS Conference, Munich, Germany, July 2024.
- Hotspots of recent HIV infections among adult people living with HIV in Nigeria. Onovo AA, Gado P, Agweye A, Kalaiwo A, Omo-Emmanuel U, Bradley K, Bishop K, Meri H, Goldstein R. Poster 847, CROI 2023, the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, Seattle, February 2023.
- Survival analysis of retention on antiretroviral therapy in a large Nigerian cohort: Kaplan-Meier, Cox proportional hazards and competing risks. CROI, 2022.
- Mental health among children and adolescents across seven sites in two countries. 25th International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2024), Munich.
- Bayesian estimation of prevalence from incomplete data. Invited presentation to the UNAIDS Reference Group on Estimates, Modelling and Projections.
- Tuberculosis case finding and treatment outcomes among people living with HIV. 48th Union World Conference on Lung Health, 2017.
- Conference abstracts in JAIDS (2017) on mobile versus paper data collection and on maternal HAART as a predictor of early infant diagnosis outcomes.
- Partner HIV serostatus disclosure and serodiscordance among PMTCT clients. 6th IAS Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention, Rome, 2011, with a conference scholarship.
Honours and awards
- Walter Reed Army Institute of Research: award for best oral presentation, 2024.
- International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2024, Munich): scholarship and presentation award.
- CROI 2023: New Investigator Scholarship.
- U.S. Embassy Eagle Awards, 2017, 2019, 2021 and 2022, for technical assistance, implementation research and research capacity building.
- U.S. Embassy Honor Award, 2017, for improving research capacity for public health impact in Nigeria; Group Honor/Eagle Plus Award, 2018, for effectiveness and equity in the PEPFAR programme.
- Two fellowships to the USAID GIS Lab, Washington DC (4th and 5th GIS Specialist Workshops).
Teaching and service
- Graduate-level methods training for government and partner staff in study design, data-quality assessment, regression and predictive analytics in the United States, Nigeria, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and South Africa.
- EvidenceLab, a free public lesson series in applied epidemiology, data science and AI, each lesson with a short video and an open notebook: exploratory analysis, outlier and anomaly detection, clustering, record deduplication, AI and machine learning workflows, spatial modelling and outbreak early warning.
- Peer reviewer for journals in public health, epidemiology, AI and digital health, biomedical science and behavioural science.