Robert Ridley

Robert Ridley is Vice-Chancellor at Unicaf University in Malawi, which specialises in online degree programmes and has held Pro Vice-Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor positions at the University of Malawi and Mzuzu University respectively.

He has a first degree in Natural Sciences from Cambridge and a PhD in Bio-organic chemistry from Wolverhampton in the UK. After his PhD, in the early 1980s, he taught at the University of Malawi where he met his wife, Agnes, and later returned in 2011 to take up positions within Higher Education in Malawi.

In between his stays in Malawi his career spanned malaria and tropical disease research and innovation in academia; the pharmaceutical industry and the World Health Organisation. In 1998 he was instrumental in establishing the Medicines for Malaria Venture, a public private partnership for the discovery and development of malaria drugs.

He first got to know Wayne and to support Flame Tree while at Mzuzu and is delighted to continue that support now from Lilongwe.