Michael Boivin, Ph.D., MPH

Since joining MSU in 2006, Michael J. Boivin has become internationally recognized as one of the foremost scientists in the neurodevelopmental and neuropsychological evaluation of African children. As a two-time Fulbright research fellow (DR Congo 1990-91; Uganda 2003-04), and a West African Research Association fellow (Senegal, 1997), he has pioneered research over the past 30 years in assessing the impact of interventions for HIV disease, cerebral malaria, konzo disease, intestinal parasite and anemia treatment, and malnutrition in children. He has conducted this work in such countries as Uganda, Malawi, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Benin, Mali, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. He has also served as a consultant for NIH-sponsored studies pertaining to HIV-affected children in Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, and Nigeria. He has won  NIH R01 grants and served as PI or Co-PI on NIH-Fogarty, NICHD, NIMH, and NIEHS-sponsored studies in all of these study domains. His most recent award was an NICHD R01 grant to evaluate the use of computer cognitive games for neuropsychological rehabilitation and evaluation in African children affected by HIV (March, 2019). Dr. Boivin is also an adjunct professor of psychiatry at the University of Michigan and has won various intramural research and training grants and awards through their medical school so support his African-based research.

These grants have focused on the use of early caregiver training in early childhood development to enhance cognitive and psychosocial development in Ugandan children affected by HIV, computerized cognitive rehabilitation training for children surviving severe malaria and children with HIV, the neuropsychological and immunological evaluation of children surviving severe malaria, and Congolese children affected by konzo disease from toxic cassava as well as children, epileptic children affected by nodding disease, and Congolese children in mining regions affected by toxic exposure from heavy metal exposure. In all of this work, Professor Boivin has mentored MSU and UM medical and graduate students in collaborative neurodevelopmental global health research in Africa. He has supervised their efforts resulting in scores of professional presentations at national and international professional meetings, and in peer-reviewed journal publications with many of these students serving as lead authors in those articles. He has also contributed to capacity building in these African countries, serving as a PhD and MMed advisor on dozens of research theses of junior African scholars in Uganda, Benin, South Africa, and the DRC.

Professor Boivin has published his findings from these studies in such leading journals as Nature, Lancet Global Health, Pediatrics, AIDS, PLoS ONE, Neuropsychology, and Clinical Infectious Diseases. He has also served as Protocol Chair of an NIH-sponsored multi-site clinical trials evaluations of the neuropsychological effects of  HIV-infected children (10 study sites in six African countries); and a multi-site study of the neurodevelopmental effects of different antiretoviral  treatment arms in mothers receiving anti-retroviral drugs to prevent transmission of mother-to-children HIV infection.  Finally, Professor Boivin is lead editor of a book entitled Neuropsychology of Children in Africa: Perspectives in Risk and Resilience (Springer Publishing, 2013), sponsored by the American Academy of Pediatric Neuropsychology (AAPdN). This book is the first of its kind, and has become a landmark publication in the field which professor Boivin has used in a number of invited CME workshops internationally.