Hackathon: Building an Interactive Malaria Dashboard with R Shiny

Christina Myalla is a data scientist and data engineer at the Malaria Atlas Project (MAP) Dar es Salaam office, based at the Ifakara Health Institute in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and jointly affiliated with the Kids Research Institute in Australia. With a master’s degree in health informatics from the University of Dar es Salaam and more than ten years of practical research experience, she works at the intersection of geospatial analysis, health systems research, and data engineering—combining advanced computational methods with a commitment to producing data that can be directly used by national health programs.

At MAP, Christina leads the development of data pipelines and geospatial accessibility modeling to support the planning of malaria control programs in sub-Saharan Africa. She designs and deploys interactive tools, including R Shiny dashboards and web portals, which are used by national malaria control programs and partner organizations to guide evidence-based decision-making.