In Conversation With Divine-Favour Ofili: Winner of the Dr. Alice Benjamin Global Maternal and Child Health Award
By Alex Stoljar Gold, Perspectives Co-Editor-in-Chief, 2024-2025
I met Divine-Favour Ofili in a French bistro in Montreal, a spot somewhat fancier than I’d anticipated when I booked it, yet surprisingly well-suited to our discussion. We talked about her journey in global health––from studying public health as an undergraduate at the University of Calabar in Cross River State, Nigeria to pursuing a PhD at McGill. She told me about her motivation to support researchers in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), her work building McGill’s Global Child Health grants program, and her winning of the prestigious Dr. Alice Benjamin Global Maternal and Child Health Fund Award. I was struck by Divine-Favour’s infectious smile and the genuine excitement she expressed discussing her work. She is a true model of how to do joyous global health work––across cultures and countries. I hope you’ll have (almost) as much fun reading this interview as I had doing it.
Divine-Favour Ofili
Academic Roots and Early Interests
You’ve called yourself a “public‑health girl for life.” How did it all begin?
Public health almost found me by accident. I originally dreamed of becoming a gynecologist after witnessing the pain of recurrent miscarriages in my family. But when medical school applications didn’t pan out, I embraced prevention instead of treatment and never looked back. During my undergraduate studies in Nigeria, the breadth of public health work—from hospital infection control to community health outreach—pulled me in.
What brought you to McGill?
For my Master of Public Health, I applied to universities in both Canada and the U.S. and ultimately chose McGill. The program let me do a practicum with the Cree Board of Health and Social Services, supporting a peer‑led diabetes activity program for youth. That practicum was eye‑opening: it exposed the stark inequities Indigenous communities face and showed me how social and cultural factors shape chronic disease risk. It also cemented my interest in immigrant health; as an immigrant myself, I felt a personal pull toward those questions.
What’s the focus of your PhD work now?
I’m analyzing healthcare utilization patterns among people living with diabetes—especially immigrants—before and after diagnosis. It is social epidemiology at its core: how migration status, socioeconomic position, and systemic barriers all intersect with chronic disease. In the future, after my doctoral studies, I want to weave in maternal‑child health, looking at gestational diabetes as a bridge between my interests.
Building the Global Child Health Mini‑Grants
You coordinate the McGill Global Child Health Program (GCHP)’s mini‑grants. What is the program, and what do you actually do day‑to‑day?
The program funds small, locally led maternal‑ and child‑health research projects in LMICs—up to 3000 CAD per award. When I joined in late 2021, the GCHP mini-grants program was still in its early stages with only the vision in place, so I played a key role in helping to build the application portal, promotion strategy, and a multi‑level peer‑review process. Each eligible proposal now receives at least two blind reviews, and those with large score discrepancies get two more. In our inaugural round we received about 40 applications—remarkable for a first call—and we’ve maintained that momentum ever since.
Why insist that primary applicants both live and work in LMICs?
We want research to be locally defined, locally led, and locally beneficial. Applicants must be citizens and residents of an LMIC—or at minimum have lived there for the past year with strong local partners. That criterion keeps the power and the funding where the problems—as well as the insights—really are.
Winning the Dr. Alice Benjamin Global Maternal and Child Health Fund Award
How did the Alice Benjamin Award fit into your story?
By 2024 the program needed funds to keep me on as coordinator, and my supervisors—Drs. Gillian Morantz and Jennifer Turnbull—encouraged me to apply for McGill’s Dr. Alice Benjamin Global Health Award. Although it’s usually a travel award, we argued that I was “travelling virtually” every day—supporting projects in Nigeria, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, and beyond from my desk in Montreal. The committee agreed. The award financed 12 weeks of my position and allowed us to run a third grant cycle without interruption.
I also want to say––on the record––that I'm so appreciative of being given the opportunity to serve in this capacity as a grant coordinator for such an impactful program. I truly believe it is advancing health equity and health promotion for children across the globe by focusing on low resource communities. I’m so grateful that the Dr. Alice Benjamin Award allowed to extend my time with this great initiative.
Challenges and Growth
What’s been the toughest part of juggling your PhD work with grant coordination?
Time, plain and simple. Email floods peak just before grant deadlines, and trying to schedule clinicians—who have packed clinical schedules—can be brutal. My workaround is to book meetings three weeks ahead and block dissertation hours in my calendar. Design tasks pushed me too: I’d never created a fundraising brochure before, but learning visual storytelling has become a surprising new skill.
And the most rewarding moment?
A young researcher wrote to say our 3000 CAD grant was her first ever award and gave her the confidence to apply elsewhere. Seeing that personal transformation—and the local projects moving from proposal to policy discussion—makes every late‑night email worth it.
On Research Equity and Local Knowledge
We spoke about inequities in global health publishing—the fact that many LMIC studies are still led by Western institutions. What’s your take?
Waiving article‑processing fees for LMIC corresponding authors helps, but structural change requires more. Funding agencies and journals need to reward collaborations where local experts lead and set the agenda. True “agency” means letting communities define their own research questions—not parachuting in solutions.
You told a story about community engagement in Nigeria that changed your view of “problem‑solving.”
Yes—during my undergraduate fieldwork, my team assumed malaria was the community’s top concern because we saw stagnant drains and mosquitoes. After focus group discussions we learned residents cared far more about waste disposal. It was revealing to become aware of the gap between our assumptions about priorities and what was actually important to the people who lived there. Once trash collection improved, the drains cleared too. That lesson—listen first—guides everything I do.
Looking Ahead
Where do you hope this path leads next?
I see myself bridging research and policy—helping translate solid data into programs that actually close health gaps for immigrant and marginalized communities. Whether that’s within academia or an international agency, I want to keep tying together maternal‑child health, immigrant health, chronic disease prevention, and equitable funding structures.
Any final thoughts for fellow early‑career researchers?
Take the shot—even a “mini” grant can change your trajectory. Build genuine local partnerships, stay curious, and never underestimate how far a few thousand dollars (and a good mentor) can go.