Youngest Phd Holder in Kenya: Born and raised in Mbiriri village at the foothills of Mt Kenya in Nyeri county, Dr Purity Ngina could not in her wildest dreams imagine that one day she would be Kenya’s youngest Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) graduate.
In 2018, at the age of 28, Dr Ngina made history to become the youngest PhD holder in Kenya in Biomathematics. The subject of her PhD thesis was the relationship between HIV and mathematics.
“It is difficult to convince some of them that I am not a doctor in the medical field,” Ngina says.
From a humble beginning, Ngina remembers going to school without shoes and fetching water from River Sagana, which is 3km from her home.
The last born in a family of two scored 235 marks in her Kenya Certificate of Primary Education examinations. Her late mother, Lydia Ngina, was not amused and prevailed upon her to repeat class eight and work harder. She managed to get 368 marks.
She was admitted to Tumu Tumu High School in Nyeri. After struggling to pay her school fees throughout high school, she managed to score B+ and was admitted to Egerton University to study for a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics.
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She was then offered a full scholarship to pursue a Masters in Applied Mathematics after getting First Class honours degree, in 2013.
In 2016, she joined Strathmore University as an assistant lecturer. The German Academic Exchange Service paid her PhD tuition fee.
On June 29 2018, she was among the three doctorate graduates at the Strathmore University. Ngina now hopes to mentor girls to pursue Math.
This story was on PhD holder Dr. Purity Ngina first published in the Daily Nation.
It’s just same marks for me.. 235 marks. Shida kwangu ni karo ya shule. Otherwise I would have been at the top..
Congratulations ?