Modest Mulenga is the Executive Director and senior medical researcher at Tropical Diseases Research Centre, a national health research institution in Zambia. He is a Zambian senior medical doctor and an international expert in tropical and infectious diseases. He obtained a BSc in Human Biology and a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery in 1987 from the University of Zambia. He also obtained an MSc in Infection and Health in the Tropics with distinction from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK, and a PhD in Tropical and Infectious Diseases in 2003 from the University of London in the UK. He also hold a postgraduate Diploma in Clinical Tropical Medicine and a Diploma in Health Systems Management from the Royal College of Physicians of London, UK and Galilee College, Israel respectively.

He has served on various health research advisory boards and committees in the Zambian and internationally. He was the Vice Chairman of the National AIDS Research and Ethics Committee under National AIDS Council of Zambia, former Vice Chair of the Developing Countries Coordinating Committee of the EDCTP etc. He is a member of the National Health Research Advisory Committee for the Zambian Government and Chair of the National Nutrition Research and Academia Committee in Zambia, and he is also the country representative on the Joint Coordinating Board of the WHO/UNDP/UNICEF and World Bank Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (WHO/TDR) (currently Chair), . member of the Research Directors’ Joint Coordinating Committee of the East, Central and Southern Africa-Health Community. He is also currently member of the African Advisory Committee for Health Research and Development of the WHO-AFRO. He has also supervised PhD students in their medical research training with institutions such as the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Belgium, where he has also been invited as a Juror for PhD examination. He was a visiting Senior Lecture at Yaoundé University under the Poverty Related Diseases College (PRDC) programme.  He is an Honorary Senior Lecturer in Biomedical Sciences at the Copperbelt University in Zambia. He has been an active medical researcher and research manager for over 20 years and has published extensively in international peer-reviewed journals on tropical and infectious diseases. His medical research interests are in poverty related tropical and infectious diseases, health in the resource-constrained settings,  clinical epidemiology and interventions for the control and prevention of tropical and infectious diseases such as malaria, HIV/AIDS,TB and water-borne diseases.