Olivia joined the ISPM in November 2006 to work on her PhD in epidemiology, using data from ART-LINC and the IeDEA collaboration. The focus of her PhD was analysis of treatment outcomes according to individual and program characteristics. During her PhD she spent time in Lilongwe, Malawi and South Africa working with collaborating sites and attending several courses. During this time she became increasingly independent, taking the lead in writing grant applications and scientific publications, presenting work at national and international conferences and supervising others. Olivia successfully defended her PhD (“The clinical and public health epidemiology of combination antiretroviral therapy in low-income settings: collaborative analyses of cohort studies”) in November 2009.