The idea that there is bullying in academia isn’t new to anybody, but the discussion of it is new and the idea that you don’t have to put up with it … - Patricia Kingori

I thought 'the worst that can happen is that they say I’m not ready', which is fine. For me everything was about the idea – if the idea is strong then you can find ways to provide the infrastructure for it.

I was trying to find other places in Africa to continue my work. Wellcome were supportive – 'If you need to go to another location, if you need to have interruption of studies'. At the same time I felt like I really should go back [to Kenya]. I owed it to the people I was working with who had spent hours of their time with me. Then Wellcome were really helpful in supporting me to find another supervisor as well.

I didn’t want to just launch into something and reinvent the wheel, I wanted to find out some of the issues they had, so that I could try and set my project up in the best possible way. That’s been really helpful and people were really generous with their time.