Kaboni Whitney Gondwe

PhD, RN

Assistant Professor in Nursing and Midwifery

Dr Gondwe received her PhD in Nursing and Doctoral Certificate in Global Health from Duke University in 2018. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in translational research for junior faculty from the Medical College of Wisconsin in 2023.  She is an assistant professor in the Child, Family, and Population Health Nursing Department.

Dr Gondwe is originally from Malawi, where she began her career in nursing and midwifery.  Her research aims to improve maternal and infant outcomes in Malawi and the US. Her work addresses disparities in birth outcomes, perinatal mental health, stress and resilience, social determinants of health, and parent-infant interactions. 

One of her research areas is understanding how perinatal stress and resilience influence birth outcomes, including perinatal mental health and early dyadic interactions between the birthing parent and their infant. This work also addresses how social determinants of health, such as intimate partner violence, food insecurity, housing, and health care access, moderate these relationships. She is also currently working on understanding factors associated with low uptake of postnatal care and seeking interventions that would improve access, especially for underserved and minority populations. Additionally, I explore factors contributing to adverse pregnancy and infant outcomes among immigrant women.