Chrissie Kaponda named UIC Alumni Award winner
She is one of five UIC alumni to be selected for a 2026 award.
About Chrissie Kaponda
Chrissie P. N. Kaponda, PhD ’96, received the 2026 Alumni Achievement Award from the UIC Alumni Association.
She is one of five alumni selected by the Alumni Association for awards this year, which recognize extraordinary alumni who contribute to a vibrant, healthier, more connected world.
In a dynamic career spanning academia, service and national health systems leadership, Kaponda has transformed futures and elevated quality of life in her home country of Malawi.
Kaponda attended UIC through the United States Agency for International Development’s African Graduate Fellowship Program. Her ability to dive into thoughtful research projects — ranging from peer education for AIDS prevention among women in Botswana, to a study of teen motherhood in the maternal-child nursing department — immediately impressed her classmates and professors.
“[Kaponda] has both exceptional intellectual capacities and a deep commitment to the nursing profession [and] women’s health,” says Dr. Kathleen Norr, Kaponda’s PhD faculty advisor at UIC.
Kaponda’s vision of improving global health care, combined with the skills and collaborations she developed during her PhD studies at UIC, deepened her expertise and expanded the impact of the work she would lead across Malawi.
Kaponda’s efforts as a faculty member at the University of Malawi’s Kamuzu College of Nursing (KCN) advanced Malawi’s nursing education and research capacity. She strengthened the nation’s pipeline of nursing educators and researchers by launching the college’s MS and PhD programs and spearheaded her own groundbreaking research projects focused on maternal/child health and HIV prevention.
In securing funding from the National Institutes of Health, she helped to establish Malawi’s first research center at a college of nursing. Her leadership positioned Malawian scholars to lead impact-driving research projects elevating care and quality of life.
After her 2015 retirement from KCN, Kaponda continued championing public and personal health across Malawi. She developed a national program to promote safer motherhood at the first lady’s request and chaired the Blantyre Water Board, where she led reforms that strengthened accountability, stabilized water access and helped curb a cholera outbreak in Lilongwe, Malawi’s largest city.
In 2022, Kaponda founded the Ekodda Foundation, a community-focused organization dedicated to enhancing health, education and sustainable development in Malawi’s Phalombe district — the area she and her family have called home for generations. The foundation’s work includes supporting HIV prevention peer groups, providing university scholarships and helping rural residents develop income-generating small businesses.
Linda McCreary BSN ’73, MSN ’93, PhD ’00, the former associate dean for global health at UIC’s College of Nursing, says Kaponda’s career stands as an inspired example of bringing global thinking to local action.
“It is difficult to overstate the significance of her contributions to both the development of the nursing profession and improvement of the health and well-being of the citizens of her country,” McCreary says.