Silvia Alonso Alvarez grew up in a small rural village in northern Spain as the youngest in a family of five siblings. The only one in her family to go to university, she took her BSc at the University of Leon in Spain, and then followed up with an MSc in Epidemiology in the U.K. After completing her PhD in Veterinary Public Health in Italy, the multilingual scientist moved to Kenya with her Italian-born husband. “We both have a passion for living abroad,” she says. “To date, I have been involved in research work and teaching in a range of epidemiology methods in various countries in Asia and Africa, including Vietnam, China, Cambodia, Tanzania, and Kenya.” Their two children—a six-year-old boy and a three-year-old girl—were born in France and Kenya.