Personal statement

I have a PhD in Psychology, and am a qualified clinical social worker, with over 30 years of experience in public & mental health research and evidence-based implementation. My work has focused on the evaluation of public & mental health interventions across Sub-Saharan Africa, the impact of trauma and violence on children, adolescents and their caregivers in resource constrained environments, and adolescent mental health interventions and impact focussed research. I have published over 35 peer reviewed papers. I am deeply committed to impactful collaboration between intersectoral academics, third sector organisations, communities, industry and government. 

For 12 years I worked at the Institute of Life Course Health Research (ILCHR), Stellenbosch University, as Director of the Masiphuhlisane Research Centre, a severely poverty-stricken area in South Africa. We worked in partnership with UCLA, Bath University, University College London, Queens University and Belfast University. I ran several international research training workshops on behalf of UNICEF and WHO and was a visiting Research Fellow at Queens University and the University of Bath. 

In 2021 I moved to the University of Cape Town (UCT) as Executive Director of SHAWCO (Students Health and Welfare Centres Organisation) and as Associate Professor, Director of Advocacy and Community Engagement, Division of Global Surgery. Our team focused on the social determinants of health and how they could be addressed, and positioned, both locally and globally. 

In 2022 I was invited to become a member of the Expert Committee of Africa Centre for Disease Control (CDC) which was tasked to develop and rollout an African Continental Health Research Prioritisation Framework across all 55 member states by June 2026. It was piloted in Ghana and Togo in March 2025, we are currently running in-country training across Africa. This has been tremendously fulfilling work where Africa is driving its own health research agenda.

I am the Lead Intervention Consultant for the Vodacom Foundation that is rolling out and scaling up a violence prevention intervention for adolescents that was developed by our team, and an adolescent board, at the ILCHR. This intervention is being run nationally in South Africa at 26 'Schools of Excellence' and the surrounding communities.

In 2024 I was appointed as Associate Director, Centre for Health Policy (CHP), and Co-Director, Institute for Inspiring Children's Futures Doctoral Research Centre (IICFDRC), Department of Social Work & Social Policy, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. My roles focus on international partnerships and networks to support transnational grants, early career researchers and PhD students, that will result in international, intersectoral, impactful health policy and practice. I continue working with UCT as Adjunct Associate Professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences. I am conducting collaborative research projects across the UK and Sub-Saharan Africa.