Our unified goal is to generate high-quality evidence that improves the lives of adolescents, and to meaningfully involve them in the research process.
Our diverse team has a shared passion for what we do. Our expertise covers a wide range of disciplines. Explore our team bios to find out more.
Leadership
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Professor Lucie Cluver
Professor Lucie Cluver
Co-Director
• University of Oxford
Lucie Cluver is a Professor of Child and Family Social Work, in the Centre for Evidence-Based Social Intervention in the Department of Social Policy and Intervention, and an Honorary Professor in Psychiatry and Mental Health at the University of Cape Town. She works closely with the South African government, UNDP, USAID-PEPFAR, UNICEF, UNAIDS, Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children, the World Health Organisation and with other international agencies, to provide evidence that can improve the lives of children and adolescents in Sub-Saharan Africa. Lucie is the Principal Investigator for the new £20 million UKRI GCRF Accelerating Achievement for Africa's Adolescents Hub.
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Professor Chris Desmond
Professor Chris Desmond
Co-Director
• University of KwaZulu-Natal
Chris Desmond is an economist specializing in social policy research related to children. His work has focused on children affected by HIV, early childhood development, including the impact of early growth on cognitive development, the challenges of conducting economic evaluations of social interventions, including those concerned with the care of children and, more recently, the determinants of adolescent wellbeing. Chris is a Co-Director of the UKRI GCRF Accelerating Achievement for Africa’s Adolescents Hub. He is a Honorary Research Associate at the Centre for Rural Health at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.
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Dr Elona Toska
Dr Elona Toska
Co-Director
• University of Cape Town
Elona Toska is an adolescent health researcher with specific interest in adolescent sexual and reproductive health in resource-limited settings, and how to support them to engage in safe relationships with peers and adult figures in their lives. In addition to being the UCT-lead of the UKRI GCRF Accelerating Achievements for Africa’s Adolescents Hub, Elona co-leads two studies in South Africa: the Mzantsi Wakho Adolescent Health cohort on adolescents living with HIV and the HEY BABY study on adolescent mothers and their children in collaboration with a wonderful team of colleagues. She works closely with colleagues at UNICEF, UNFPA, WFP, the Elizabeth Glaser Paediatric Foundation, and Paediatric Adolescent Treatment for Africa to inform programming for adolescents and young people in Sub-Saharan Africa.
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Professor Lorraine Sherr
Professor Lorraine Sherr
Co-Director
• University College London
Lorraine Sherr is a Professor of Clinical and Health Psychology at University College London and co-director of the UKRI GCRF Adolescent Hub. Editor of three international academic journals (AIDSCare, Psychology Health and Medicine, Vulnerable Children and Youth Studies) she has also written or edited over 40 books, and authored over 300 academic journal papers. With a wide international research portfolio, Lorraine was a founding board member for AIDSImpact, and the Coalition for children affected by AIDS. MHPSS and sat on the WHO Strategic Advisory group for AIDS, chaired the WHO Disclosure group, JLICA and Know Violence. She has provided evaluations for USAID, UNICEF, PEPFAR, Save the Children, World Vision and expert input to a number of global organisations and Governments. She was awarded the Swedish NoaksArk Guldarken award in 2018, and an MBE in 2021.
Advisory Board
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Professor Claire Heffernan
Professor Claire Heffernan
Claire Heffernan is a veterinarian with training in the social sciences. She joined LIDC and RVC from the School of Veterinary Sciences at the University of Bristol where as Head of Infection and Immunity she initiated the Risk and Resilience Hub which explores four inter-linked critical global challenges: climate change and health, antimicrobial resistance, sustainable food systems and disease emergence. Claire has extensive experience of inter-disciplinary research grounded in the challenges faced by poorer communities. For example, in 2000, she founded the Livestock Development Group (LDG) at the School of Agriculture, Policy and Development at the University of Reading. This was in response to the need for a meta-disciplinary approach to the problems faced by the global poor.
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Kaumbu Mwondela
Kaumbu Mwondela
Admitted to practice in Zambia, Kaumba worked in the legal industry from 2003. From his early experience in private practice, he has rapidly established himself as a corporate advisory and commercial litigation specialist. As a banking and financial services advisor, he has been an empaneled legal advisor to three of the four largest commercial banks in Zambia. His areas of practice extend to advising in international commercial law, Public Private Partnerships, Corporate Insolvency and business rescue, securitization, conveyancing and a broad range of issues, both contentious and non-contentious. He has worked with clients in the banking, finance, telecommunications, construction, manufacturing, tourism and non governmental sectors.
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Professor Kelsey Shanks
Professor Kelsey Shanks
Kelsey Shanks is a Professor at Ulster University and the Global Challenges Research Fund Challenge Leader for Education Research within UK Research and Innovation. Her research agenda focuses on the relationship between education and conflict in divided societies, with an exploration of education’s links to post-conflict stabilisation and peace-building agendas. She has conducted extensive research in Iraq, along with work in Ukraine, Syria and Somalia. Kelsey currently holds an AHRC Network Plus Grant, in partnership with the University of Sussex, Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan and the University of Cape Town, South Africa on the PEER Network (Political Economy of Education Network) project. Running until January 2024, the PEER Network aims to build capacity and enhance knowledge exchange in Central Asia and Southern Africa on political economy analysis of education systems in conflict affected contexts.
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Kola Aina
Kola Aina
Kola Aina is an entrepreneur, technology operator and investor with vast experience working in Africa’s largest economic market. His sectors include venture capital, technology, media, agriculture, infrastructure, publishing and real estate as an angel investor while leading Ventures Platform. Venture Platform is a leading African ventures capital fund that provides founder friendly capital and support to early stage companies in a framework that is buoyed by corporate governance and hands-on support.
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Dr Maru Mormina
Dr Maru Mormina
Maru Mormina joined the University of Oxford in 2018 as a Senior Researcher and Ethics Advisor. Her primary affiliation is with the Ethox Centre where she is developing a programme of research in global ethics. She also works with the University's Research Services where she is responsible for the development and leadership of a complementary programme of ethics advice to and support for University of Oxford researchers working in low and middle income settings.
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Professor Nkanda Luo
Professor Nkanda Luo
Nkanda Luo is the current Minister of Gender and Child Development. She has also served as Minister of Health, Minister of Transport and Communications, Minister of Local Government and Housing, and Minister of Chiefs and Traditional Affairs. Nkanda is Professor of microbiology and immunology and has served as Head of Pathology and Microbiology at the University Teaching Hospital, Lusaka, Zambia. As well as training in Microbiology and Immunology, she pursued studies in immunopathology of infectious diseases and epidemiology and medical statistics. Nkanda has carried out extensive research on HIV/AIDS, TB, malaria and other infectious diseases. She has been active in teaching of both undergraduate and postgraduate biomedical and nursing students.
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Rayan Abdelmutaal
Rayan Abdelmutaal
Rayan Abdelmutaal is a leading expert in the management of humanitarian aid and advocacy driven partnerships, hailing from Sudan. She graduated from the Ahfad University for Women's School of Management with distinction.
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Professor Sam Kinyanjui
Professor Sam Kinyanjui
Sam Kinyanjui is the Head of Training and Capacity Building at the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Programme in Kenya and the Director for the Initiative to Develop African Research Leaders (IDeAL). As the Head of Training and Capacity Building at the KWTRP in Kenya he provides scientific, and strategic guidance for academic training towards research leadership. His key achievement has been the development and implementation of a comprehensive research career framework for attracting, training and retaining African research leaders.
• University of Oxford and University of Cape Town
Sally Medley is an experienced Senior Programme Manager currently based in Cape Town, South Africa. Sally has worked with Lucie and her research teams since 2015 following the completion of her Masters in African Studies from the University of Oxford. Sally has the fortunate position of sitting at the centre of our North-South partnership having been based for a number of years between the Universities of Oxford and Cape Town. Prior to this Sally spent significant time living and working in the Eastern Cape of South Africa where she managed the delivery and implementation of both a randomised trial and a longitudinal study related to adolescent health and well-being. As the Hub’s Senior Programme Manager Sally manages the operationalisation of research through the Hub’s five Work Packages with a team of Work Package Coordinators, and in close collaboration with the Chief Financial Officer and Hub leadership team.
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Kristen de Graaf
Kristen de Graaf
Kristen de Graaf is an experienced Programme Manager based in London, United Kingdom with expertise in HIV and sexual and reproductive health and rights and advocacy. Kristen has worked advancing gender equality and human rights in the HIV response since 2015 following the completion of her Masters in Reproductive and Sexual Health Research from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. She has a professional background in clinical nursing across a variety of disciplines including paediatrics, sexual health and TB. As a Programme Manager, Kristen works closely with investigators, implementers and policy makers to lead research implementation and grant management for HEY BABY and Mzantsi Wakho.
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Becky Maughan-Brown
Becky Maughan-Brown
Operations Manager
• University of Cape Town
Becky Maughan-Brown joined the Hub in 2019 and is currently the Operations Manager for the University of Cape Town (UCT) team and the portfolio of work at UCT under Dr Elona Toska. She holds master’s degrees in public health and social work, with a focus on maternal and child health policy. After spending four years leading the Department of Student Health Education at Yale University, Becky relocated to Cape Town and has spent the last decade working in health education, project coordination, and operations management.
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Rasangi Prematilaka
Rasangi Prematilaka
Project Manager
• University of Oxford
Rasangi is an experienced Project Manager based in Oxford. She has been with the University of Oxford over 15 years in senior management with a particular focus on research facilitation, the REF and project management. Prior to this and after receiving her MA in International Relations, she has worked in the humanitarian sector in South Asia. Her expertise covered both areas of fundraising and programme management - advocating for and safeguarding women’s and children’s rights within a regional context and in close collaboration with local communities, policy makers and international donors such as DFID, CIDA, SIDA, UNIFEM and USAID. As a Project Manager, Rasangi works closely with the teams based in Oxford and University of Cape Town towards the successful grant management and reporting of the Accelerating Achievement for Africa’s Adolescents (Accelerate) Hub programme
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Petra Fitzgerald
Petra Fitzgerald
Administration and Finance
• University of Oxford
Petra Fitzgerald has over 20 years of diverse experience in project coordination and administration, primarily in media, education, research, and non-profits. She oversees project administration to support the implementation of Accelerate Hub studies.
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Akhona Mfeketo
Akhona Mfeketo
Senior Finance Officer
• University of Cape Town
Akhona Mfeketo serves as Senior Finance Officer at UCT. She has a demonstrated history of supporting accounting activities in both private and public sector settings.
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Nicole Chetty
Nicole Chetty
Research Assistant
• University of Cape Town
Nicole Chetty supports with monitoring and evaluation in the COVID-19 parenting work. Her specialist monitoring and evaluation support extends to the Hub’s LEGO-funded work in South Africa, evaluating ParentText, ParentChat, ParentApp and the hybrid delivery option as they are piloted.
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Pamela Parath
Pamela Parath
Project Manager, PI & Leadership team Support
Pamela Parath serves as a Project Manager, PI & Leadership team Support for the Accelerate Hub's Research Team. Pamela brings with her a wealth of experience across many sectors. She has a background in project management acquired through working in a range of industries such as mining, sales, and healthcare.
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Fiona Ondara
Fiona Ondara
Fiona Ondara serves as Administrative and Finance Assistant to the Accelerate Hub team. Fiona is based in Kenya and brings a wealth of experience in administration, business management, and marketing.
Abigail Ornellas is a social sciences researcher, with a doctorate in social work from Stellenbosch University. She has over seven years of research and project experience within the developmental sphere and academia; she has worked with groups such as DSD, Department of Education, UNICEF, Black Sash, FHI360, REPSSI, USAID, IRD and EPRI. Her research interests include mental health, socioeconomic policy, NGO management and bridging the divide between individual and collective development. Abigail joined ORSA as Study Manager for HEY BABY in February 2021.
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Professor Alan Stein
Professor Alan Stein
PI/WP Lead
• University of Oxford
Alan Stein is Professor of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of Oxford; Honorary Professor in the School of Public health at the University of Witwatersrand and a member of the faculty of the African Health Research Institute, South Africa. His main area of research concerns the development of children and adolescents in the face of adversity. Ultimately the priority is to develop interventions. He has led three Lancet series on: The mental health of internally displaced and refugee children; Perinatal mental health and The communication of life threatening conditions to children.
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Angelique Thomas
Angelique Thomas
ECR (Research Assistant)
• University of Cape Town
Angelique Thomas is an experience social science researcher with a background in Political Sciences and Creative Writing. She serves as a Research Assistant in the Accelerate Hub, contributing to our resilience and HEY BABY research. Angelique is working for the Hub part-time while she continues as an independent consultant for the Pivot Collective, a collaborative organisation focused on improving knowledge production, collaboration and knowledge translation in Global Health.
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Dr Anne M. Khisa
Dr Anne M. Khisa
WP-1a Coordinator & ECR and Capacity-Building Lead
• African Population Health Research Centre
Anne Khisa is a post-doctoral research fellow at the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC). She is the program coordinator for the capacity sharing work package at the UKRI GCRF Accelerating Achievement for Africa’s Adolescent’s Hub project. She has research interests in higher education and capacity-strengthening, namely: developing frameworks and indicators for the impact of research strengthening capacity initiatives in Africa, examining gender responsiveness of capacity strengthening programs, and using qualitative research methodology to document embedded research capacity strengthening projects. Currently, she is part of a team investigating the ‘participation and quality of experiences of women in Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) in postgraduate training programs and careers in East Africa’.
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Dr Anne Makena
Dr Anne Makena
Programme Coordinator
• Africa Oxford Initiative, University of Oxford
Anne Makena is the co-lead and Program Coordinator of the Africa Oxford Initiative (AfOx), a vibrant platform for 'all things Africa' at the University of Oxford. AfOx facilitates equitable and sustainable research partnerships through researcher mobility schemes for African academics, high-quality research engagement meetings and financial, academic and mentorship support to African students and research staff at Oxford. AfOx is delighted to work with the Accelerate Hub to support career development for the Hub's early career researchers. Anne completed the DPhil in Chemical Biology as a Rhodes Scholar at the University of Oxford with a research focus on biochemical characterisation and inhibition of bacterial enzymes involved in antimicrobial resistance. Beyond AfOx, Anne is actively involved in various initiatives with global research funders including contributing to the Africa Strategy for the UK Research and Innovation, participating in the Rethinking Research Partnerships Collaborative and supporting career development initiatives in partnership with the African Academy of Sciences.
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Dr Boladé Hamed Banougnin
Dr Boladé Hamed Banougnin
ECR (Postdoc)
• University of Cape Town
Boladé Hamed Banougnin is a UKRI GCRF Accelerate Hub Postdoctoral research fellow at the Centre for Social Science Research, University of Cape Town. He is a demographer with seven years’ work experience in design and data collection, data processing, analysis, interpretation, and dissemination. He graduated with a PhD in Reproductive Health Science in 2019 at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. He is working on many research projects related sexual and reproductive health outcomes and SDG mapping among adolescents living with HIV using the Mzantsi Wakho and the HEY BABY data.
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Professor Cathy Ward
Professor Cathy Ward
Study PI
• University of Cape Town
Catherine L. Ward is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Cape Town. Her research explores ways to prevent violence perpetrated against and by children, and she is one of the developers of the PLH suite of programmes.
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Charné Glinski
Charné Glinski
Clinic Manager
• University of Cape Town
Charné Glinski is a registered Clinical Psychologist and the clinical project manager for HEY BABY, supporting data collection with adolescent mothers and their children in the Eastern Cape. In 2020 she led a team of researchers conducting qualitative research with healthcare workers in the Eastern Cape regarding their experiences of providing care for adolescents living with HIV as part of the HEY BABY and Mzantsi Wakho research studies. She has experience working in several Western Cape government hospitals and clinics, working in departments including adult psychiatry, child and adolescent psychiatry, substance abuse wards and inpatient care. Her research focus is infant and maternal mental health. Her doctorate focuses on the design and adaptation of a parenting program for adolescent mothers and their children in the Eastern Cape.
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Dr Christina Laurenzi
Dr Christina Laurenzi
ECR (Research Assistant)
• University of Cape Town & Stellenbosch University
Christina Laurenzi is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Life Course Health Research at Stellenbosch University, as well as with the Accelerate Hub at UCT. She brings an interdisciplinary approach to her work, which she believes is particularly important for public health research and practice. Christina completed her doctorate at Stellenbosch University in 2020 and her areas of research have focused on community health worker programmes, adolescent mental health interventions, maternal and child health, and implementation science methodologies.
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David Chipanta
David Chipanta
Researcher
• University of Geneva
David Chipanta has over twenty years’ experience in public policy including HIV and Health systems strengthening. He is Senior Advisor Social Protection with UNAIDS based in Geneva. He also served in several senior roles with UNAIDS Liberia, AIDSRelief-Kenya, Abt Associates Bethesda, Networks of People Living with HIV in Africa. David holds a Bachelor's Degree in Economics from San Diego State University, a Masters Degree in Public Administration Economics and International Development (MP/AID) from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and is a PhD Candidate in Biomedicine with the University of Geneva.
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Professor Elleke Boehmer
Professor Elleke Boehmer
WP-3 Lead
• University of Oxford
Elleke Boehmer FRSL FRHistS FEA is Professor of World Literature in English in the English Faculty, University of Oxford and Director of the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing (OCLW). She is a founding figure in the field of colonial and postcolonial studies, and internationally known for her research in anglophone literatures of empire and anti-empire. Her work includes Postcolonial Poetics: 21st-century critical Readings (2018), Stories of Women (2005), and Colonial and Postcolonial Literature: migrant metaphors (1995, 2005). Her cultural history Indian Arrivals: Networks of British Empire, 1870-1915 (2015) won the ESSE prize 2015-16. Elleke is the author of five novels including The Shouting in the Dark, which won the triennial Olive Schreiner award (2018). Elleke is currently a British Academy Senior Research Fellow 2020, working on the project 'Southern Imagining'. She is also the co-leader of the Innovation work package on ‘Narrative and Intervention’ on the UKRI GCRF Accelerate Hub (2019-2023).
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Dr Evelyn Gitau
Dr Evelyn Gitau
WP-1 Lead
• African Population Health Research Centre
Evelyn Gitau combines a record of more than 18 years of medical research with a commitment to cultivating a new generation of researchers throughout Africa committed to solving health challenges. She is the Director of Research Capacity Strengthening at the African Population and Health Research Center. Under her direction, the division continues to grow its signature fellowship program, the Consortium for the Advancement of Research Training in Africa (CARTA) and expand opportunities across the continent for African scholars to become research leaders. She sits on numerous advisory boards for organizations advancing the agenda of research and evidence generation in Africa. These include University of Oxford (MSc International Health and Tropical Medicine), the Crick-Africa Network, the Lemleson Foundation and the Investment Committee Grand Challenges Canada.
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Professor Frances Gardner
Professor Frances Gardner
Co-PI
• University of Oxford
Frances Gardner is Professor of Child and Family Psychology in the Department of Social Policy and Intervention, and Fellow of Wolfson College. She has been variously Director and Deputy Director of the graduate programme in Evidence-Based Social Intervention and Policy Evaluation at Oxford since it began in 2003, as well as co-Director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Intervention. Her research focuses on the development and testing of parenting interventions for reducing child behaviour problems, and violence against children, in high, as well as low and middle income countries, with projects in the UK, USA, Eastern Europe, South Africa, Tanzania, Thailand and the Philippines. She investigates questions about transportability of parenting interventions across cultures and countries, about mechanisms of change, and about the subgroups of families and children for whom these interventions are most effective.
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Dr Franziska Meinck
Dr Franziska Meinck
Researcher
• University of Edinburgh
Franziska Meinck is a Lecturer in the School of Social and Political Science at the University of Edinburgh and an Honorary Professor at North-West University South Africa. Her research focuses on social determinants of violence and health and on violence prevention evaluation. Most of Franziska’s work is focused on South Africa where she currently leads an European Research Council funded study on intergenerational violence transmission and on accelerators for violence prevention.
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Professor Heidi Stöckl
Professor Heidi Stöckl
WP-2 Lead
• London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
Heidi Stöckl is Professor on Social Epidemiology, Director of the Gender Violence and Health Centre at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Head of the WHO Collaborating Centre on researching gender-based violence. Her research is focused on the epidemiology of intimate partner violence, homicide and human trafficking, among the general population, pregnant and older women, the global prevalence of intimate partner homicide and perpetrators of child homicide, trafficking for sexual exploitation and forced marriage. She has conducted the first prevalence study on intimate partner violence during pregnancy in Germany.
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Dr Helen Mebrahtu
Dr Helen Mebrahtu
Researcher
• University College London
Helen Mebrahtu holds an MSc in Immunology of Infectious Diseases from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and PhD in public health and epidemiology from UCL. Her research interests broadly include mental health, HIV infection, child and adolescent health, psychological aspects of health and the emerging impact of COVID-19 on health. Having previously worked with international NGOs in sexual health programmes and within the National Infection Services in Public Health England as an HIV/STI Surveillance and Prevention Scientist, Helen has extensive knowledge of different aspects of public health such as research methods, health policy, infectious disease epidemiology, health promotion, disease surveillance and control, health needs assessment and prioritization as well as health statistics. She was also involved in studies in low- and middle-income countries with vulnerable families and children, investigating the impact of mental health comorbidities on pregnant adolescents and more recently investigating parenting challenges and impact evaluation of parenting resources disseminated globally during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Dr Hlengiwe Sacolo
Dr Hlengiwe Sacolo
ECR (Postdoc)
• University of Cape Town
Hlengiwe Sacolo is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the UKRI GCRF Accelerating Achievement for Africa’s Adolescents (Accelerate) Hub, Centre for Social Science Research (CSSR), University of Cape Town. She works with a multidisciplinary research team in the implementation of Parenting for Lifelong Health Scale-Up of Parenting Evaluation Research (SUPER) study, a research collaboration between the WHO, UNICEF, and the Universities of Bangor, Cape Town, Oxford, and Stellenbosch. The project focuses on reducing violence against children and improving child wellbeing. Her research focuses on maternal and child health, adolescent sexual and reproductive health interventions in vulnerable communities, infectious diseases, and implementation science.
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Dr Isang Awah
Dr Isang Awah
ECR
• University of Oxford
Isang Awah is a Researcher and Project Manager in Oxford University’s Department of Social Policy and Intervention. She works on the development of Parenting for Lifelong Health Digital, a digital version of the in-person parenting programme. Her research interests include social issues and literacy especially in developing countries. She has over a decade of experience in researching with children and young people, and has carried out studies on various issues such as the effects of verbal abuse on female domestic servants in Nigeria. Isang holds a PhD in Education from the University of Cambridge, as well as degrees from Harvard University (Master of Liberal Arts in Extension Studies, Literature & Creative Writing) and the University of Uyo, Nigeria (BSc, Biochemistry). As founder of MyRainbowBooks Limited, Isang introduced personalised storybooks in Nigeria that are tailored for African children and initiated a nationwide annual creative writing competition for children.
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Dr Jamie Lachman
Dr Jamie Lachman
Researcher
• University of Oxford & University of Glasgow
Jamie M. Lachman has over 20 years of experience developing, testing, and scaling up family and parenting programmes to reduce violence against children and improve child wellbeing in low- and middle-income countries. He is a senior research officer at the University of Oxford Department of Social Policy and Intervention and a research fellow at the University of Glasgow MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit. He is also the founder of Clowns Without Borders South Africa and a co-founder of the Parenting for Lifelong Health initiative. The programmes and resources that Jamie has co-developed have reached over 196 million beneficiaries in 198 countries. Jamie is a storyteller, banjo-player, songwriter, facilitator, and clown. Dedicated to promoting our human capacity for peace and laughter, Jamie strives to live each day fully with compassion and amazement.
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Dr Jane Kelly
Dr Jane Kelly
ECR (Research Officer)
• University of Cape Town
Dr Jane Kelly is a research officer in the Centre for Social Science Research at the University of Cape Town where she supports and co-manages research activities on three projects: HEY BABY (Helping Empower Youth Brought up in Adversity and their Babies and Young Children), Adolescent Engagement and Participation, and a Global Fund Strategic Initiative project that aims to support AGYW (Adolescent Girls and Young Women) HIV incidence reduction and optimal HIV-related outcomes in five countries in Africa. She is also a lead investigator in a sub-study of experiences of healthcare providers during the COVID-19 pandemic. She has a background in psychological research, a strong interest in resilience-related research, and experience working in both academic and government settings, including a year in the Western Cape government working on using routine data to inform policies and programming for violence reduction.
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Janina Jochim
Janina Jochim
ECR (DPhil student)
• University of Oxford
Janina Jochim is a postdoctoral researcher with the HEY BABY team. She has a passion for promoting the wellbeing of adolescent girls and young women, and is extremely fortunate to be learning from and working with a wonderful team of inspiring colleagues and mentors. Janina completed her doctorate at the University of Oxford in 2021 where research focused on adolescent mothers’ pre-and post-pregnancy pathways that interrupt continued school enrolment.
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Janke Tolmay
Janke Tolmay
Quantitative Research Assistant
• University of Cape Town
Janke is a Quantitative Research Assistant at the UKRI GCRF Accelerating Achievement for Africa's Adolescents Hub and is based at the University of Cape Town. She holds a BSc Honours degree in Microbiology and recently completed an MSc in Control of Infectious Diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, where her thesis explored the associations between intimate partner violence, HIV testing and sexual risk behaviours among women in rural South Africa. Since joining the Accelerate Hub at the end of 2020, she has been working on the HEY BABY Study, focusing on data analysis and data cleaning related to sexual and reproductive health, adolescent motherhood, experiences of violence, and HIV/AIDS.
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Jenny Chen
Jenny Chen
ECR (Research Assistant)
• University of Oxford
Jenny Chen is an adolescent health researcher who has extensive experience in youth work, with a Master’s in the Control of Infectious Diseases from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. With a strong interest in the social aspects of heath, she conducted her Master’s dissertation on the aspirations and self-perceptions of adolescents living with HIV using data from Mzantsi Wakho, and presented her findings at the AIDS 2020, INTEREST 2020 conferences, and the 2020 HIV and Adolescence Workshop. As a Research Coordinator, Jenny manages and coordinates ethics applications and data management for projects within the UKRI GCRF Accelerating Achievements for Africa’s Adolescents Hub. She supports research activities and research tools development for the HEY BABY study on adolescent mothers and their children, and its sister project – Teen Advisory Groups (TAG), which focuses on research with adolescents using participatory methods. She has a keen interest on mixed methods, having used mixed methods analysis for her Master’s thesis. She is also involved in the analysis and drafting of manuscripts for HEY BABY and TAG.
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Dr Kate Orkin
Dr Kate Orkin
PI/WP Lead
• University of Oxford
Kate Orkin is Senior Research Fellow in Behavioural Economics at the Blavatnik School of Government and a Supernumerary Fellow of Merton College. Kate leads the Mind and Behaviour Research Group at the Centre for the Study of African Economies, alongside Professor Stefan Dercon. The Group is a network of economists, psychiatrists and psychologists applying psychology to inform the design of programmes which either reduce poverty or improve governance and service delivery in low- and middle-income countries.
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Dr Katharina Haag
Dr Katharina Haag
Researcher
• University College London
Katharina Haag is a post-doctoral researcher at the Department of Global Health at University College London, mainly working on the Child Community Care and Zifune studies. She completed her PhD on parenting and child trauma at the University of Bath in 2020. She is particularly interested in risk and protective factors for child and adolescent well-being, especially social and community support.
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Kathryn Roberts
Kathryn Roberts
Researcher
• University College London
Kathryn Roberts is a postgraduate researcher within the Institute for Global Health at University College London (UCL). Her PhD research, funded by the Economic Social Research Council (ESRC), focuses on adolescent pregnancy and mental health in sub-Saharan Africa. Kathryn has been a Research Assistant based at UCL since 2015 and has worked on a broad portfolio of international projects focusing on global health topics relating to HIV/AIDS, family, women and children, adolescents, violence, community and psychological aspects of health and wellbeing. Kathryn has a passion for promoting the wellbeing of young people and is extremely fortunate to be learning from and working with an incredible team of colleagues and mentors.
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Professor Kevin Marsh
Professor Kevin Marsh
WP-1 Lead
• University of Oxford
Kevin Marsh is a Professor of Tropical Medicine at the University of Oxford and senior advisor at the African Academy of Sciences. He has a broad research interest in child health in the tropics, with a particular focus in the immune epidemiology of malaria. Kevin’s research focuses on three main areas: identifying the protective immune response to malaria, regulation of immune responses, and determinants of virulence. In 1989 he established with colleagues a series of research projects on malaria in Kilifi on the Kenyan coast. These have subsequently developed into an international programme working on all aspects of health in east Africa (the KEMRI Wellcome Trust Research Programme) involving around 800 staff working across a number of countries in east Africa of which he was Director until August 2014. Kevin is also chair of the WHO Malaria policy advisory committee (MPAC) and a member of many global health advisory groups.
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Dr Kwabena Kusi-Mensah
Dr Kwabena Kusi-Mensah
Researcher
• University of Cambridge
Kwabena Kusi-Mensah is a Psychiatrist with additional training in Child and Adolescent Mental Health (CAMH) based in Kumasi, Ghana. His passion for children and adolescents’ mental health led him to establish the first multi-disciplinary CAMH clinic in Ghana in 2017, after returning from the Masters Programme at the Centre for Child and Adolescent Mental Health in Ibadan, Nigeria where he graduated top of his class. Currently, Kwabena is a 2nd year PhD candidate at the University of Cambridge where he is working on developing culturally appropriate tools for assessing executive and adaptive functioning for children and adolescents in West Africa, as well as risk factors affecting cognition and mental well-being.
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Lauren Baerecke
Lauren Baerecke
Project Manager
• University of Cape Town
Lauren Baerecke is a Project Manager within the PLH Digital Team, based at the University of Cape Town. She is a seasoned monitoring and evaluation (M&E) practitioner with a wealth of project and programmatic experience in the donor, NGO and public sector in South Africa. Lauren brings experience in the development, implementation and M&E of programmes in the fields of gender-based violence, adolescent girls and young women and HIV prevention to the PLH Digital team. She holds an MA in Psychological Research from the University of Cape Town.
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Dr Lesley Gittings
Dr Lesley Gittings
ECR (Postdoc)
• University of Cape Town
Lesley Gittings is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cape Town where her work focuses on adolescent participation and engagement with adolescent advisory groups of the Accelerate Hub. She is interested in how participatory methods can support the meaningful involvement of adolescents in research, policy and programming. She holds a PhD in Public Health and a Master's in Public Policy and Administration from the University of Cape Town. She has a Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) from the University of Ottawa in Canada. Lesley has worked in the HIV and health sectors in Canada and Southern Africa for over a decade.
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Dr Lucas Hertzog
Dr Lucas Hertzog
WP-2 Coordinator
• University of Cape Town
Lucas Hertzog is a sociologist based at the Adolescent Accelerators Research Hub in the Centre for Social Science Research, University of Cape Town. He works as a Junior Research Fellow at the UKRI GCRF Accelerating Achievement for Africa's Adolescents Hub. He holds a PhD and MSc in Sociology and Bachelor in Social Sciences from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. His current research investigates how a combination of social interventions influences adolescents' health in Africa, articulating social theory with quantitative analysis. His research also focuses on the relationship between mental health and digital transformation, exploring the emergence of a digitalised society in light of paradigms introduced by Social Inequality Studies and theories that explore this process looking at countries in the global South.
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Madison Little
Madison Little
ECR (DPhil student)
• University of Oxford, SPI
Madison Little is a DPhil Student in Social Intervention & Policy Evaluation at the Centre for Evidence-Based Intervention, University of Oxford. His current research examines the effectiveness of packaged cash-plus interventions in achieving multiple SDG targets for adolescents in Southern Africa.
Previously, his research focused on evaluating the role of foreign aid programmes in improving HIV outcomes among adolescents and young people. He has also evaluated bioethics systems for supporting ethically-sound clinical trials, inclusion interventions for LGBTI populations, and gender-based violence prevention programmes.
Prior to undertaking the DPhil, Madison completed the MSc in Evidence-Based Social Intervention & Policy Evaluation (with Distinction) at the University of Oxford and graduated as Valedictorian of Rutgers University with a BSc in Public Health. In his professional work, Madison spent three years running a non-profit organisation that has worked in HIV prevention among marginalised populations in Cambodia and in AIDS-affected communities in Uganda. While at UNICEF, Madison co-edited policy briefs on childhood vulnerability in Sub-Saharan Africa.
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Professor Marisa Casale
Professor Marisa Casale
WP-5 Lead
• University of the Western Cape
Marisa Casale is currently leading Work Package 5 in the UKRI GCRF Accelerating Achievement for Africa’s Adolescents Hub. She is an Extraordinary Professor at the University of the Western Cape’s School of Public Health (SOPH) and an Associate Member of Oxford University’s Department of Social Policy and Intervention. Marisa has over 20 years of professional experience in development finance and multi-disciplinary health research in Southern Africa. Her research foci have included caregiver and child health in the context of HIV, economic impacts of HIV, HIV prevention and treatment adherence among youth, and protective effects of social networks for health.
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Professor Mark Orkin
Professor Mark Orkin
PI
• University of the Witwatersrand
Mark Orkin is a retired sociologist, Honorary Professor in the Development Pathways to Health Research Unit at Wits University, and Associate Fellow in the Department of Social Policy and Intervention at Oxford. He was previously Head of Statistics South Africa, President of the Human Sciences Research Council, and Director General of the now renamed National School of Government. He was statistical analyst and lead on the pioneering accelerator paper in Lancet Child and Adolescent Health.
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Professor Mark Tomlinson
Professor Mark Tomlinson
Study PI
• Stellenbosch University
Mark Tomlinson is the Co-Director of the Institute for Life Course Health Research in the Department of Global Health at Stellenbosch University. He is also Professor of Maternal and Child Health in the School of Nursing and Midwifery, Queens University, Belfast, UK. His scholarly work has involved a diverse range of topics that have in common an interest in factors that contribute to compromised maternal health, to understanding child and adolescent development in contexts of high adversity, to understand the impact of maternal depression on child health and development, and how to develop community-based interventions to improve health and development across the life course. He is currently a member of the World Health Organization (WHO) Strategic and Technical Advisory Group of Experts (STAGE) for Maternal, Newborn, Child, Adolescent Health & Nutrition. He was elected as a member of the Academy of Science in South Africa in 2017. He has published 310 papers in peer-reviewed journals, edited two books, and published numerous book chapters.
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Dr Mona Ibrahim
Dr Mona Ibrahim
WP-1b Coordinator
• University of Oxford
Mona is the Policy Engagement Coordinator at the UKRI GCRF Accelerate Hub. Together with our partners, the Accelerate Hub team aims to improve the lives of millions of adolescents across Africa. Leading on policy engagement, I work to turn the Hub's evidence into impact by engaging stakeholders and policymakers who have vested interest in the region.
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Nontokozo Langwenya
Nontokozo Langwenya
Senior Research Officer
• University of Cape Town
Nontokozo Langwenya (eSwatini) is a co-Investigator for the HEY BABY study and young researcher of the UKRI GCRF Accelerating Achievement for Africa’s Adolescents Hub. Her research interest include women’s reproductive health and HIV, with a specific focus on prevention of sexual violence and mitigating outcomes associated with sexual violence. In 2019, she advised the COVID-19 epidemiological monitoring team at the eSwatini Ministry of Health and is a co-Investigator of a study focusing on Healthcare Workers experiences during COVID-19 in eSwatini. Prior to joining the Accelerate Hub, she was a course convenor for the Introduction to Epidemiology (2016-2018) course in the School of Public Health and Family Medicine at the University of Cape Town.
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Dr Olanrewaju Edun
Dr Olanrewaju Edun
ECR
• Imperial College London
Olanrewaju Edun is a qualified medical doctor and worked in Nigeria's national HIV control programme, both as a clinician and data monitoring and evaluation specialist. He holds a Master's degrees in Control of Infectious Diseases, and in Biomedical Research from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Imperial College London respectively. Currently, he is pursuing a PhD in Infectious Disease Epidemiology at Imperial College London. His research aims to understand the determinants of successful HIV treatment outcomes among adolescents living with HIV and draws on data from the Mzantsi Wakhostudy. He is also working with members of the Accelerate Hub on the UPLIFT project.
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Professor Olayinka Omigbodun
Professor Olayinka Omigbodun
Study PI
• University of Ibadan
Olayinka Omigbodun is Professor of Psychiatry, Provost of the College of Medicine, University of Ibadan (CoMUI) and Consultant in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, Nigeria. From 2011 to 2020, she was pioneer director of the University’s MacArthur Foundation-funded Centre for Child and Adolescent Mental Health, a multidisciplinary centre for advocacy, training, research and service in child and adolescent mental health. Olayinka is a past president of the International Association for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Professions (IACAPAP). In 2020, she received the International Contribution Award from IACAPAP and the World Psychiatric Association Honorary Membership award. She received the African Leadership in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Award in 2019 from the African Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health (AACAMH). She is a Foundation Fellow (FNAMed) of the Nigerian Academy of Medicine, 2020 and a Fellow (FAS) of the Nigerian Academy of Science (2019).
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Dr Oluwaseyi Somefun
Dr Oluwaseyi Somefun
ECR (Postdoc)
• University of the Western Cape
Oluwaseyi Somefun is a postdoctoral fellow with Work Package 5 in the UKRI GCRF Accelerating Achievement for Africa’s Adolescents Hub. She has over 5 years of professional experience in both domestic and international settings. Seyi is involved in research investigating the cost-effectiveness and acceptability of interventions designed to improve the wellbeing of adolescents in Africa. Her scholarly interests range widely from adolescent sexual and reproductive health, social networks, and mixed research methodology. She is strongly interested in improving health behaviours of adolescents through health communication and policy dissemination.
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Sopuruchukwu Obiesie
Sopuruchukwu Obiesie
Intern
• University of Oxford
Sopuruchukwu Obiesie currently researches methodological approaches in conducting economic evaluations of interventions to prevent childhood violence in the health economics work package of the Accelerate hub. She recently completed an MSc in International Health and Tropical Medicine at the University of Oxford with a distinction. Prior to this, she obtained a medical degree from Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Nigeria. Having worked in a variety of clinical and non-clinical positions, he has experience in public health programming at a subnational level and has worked with development partners to implement programmes.
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Samuel Bojo
Samuel Bojo
Study PI
• Strathmore University
Samuel Bojo is a Public Health specialist and PhD student from Strathmore University in Nairobi Kenya, embedded in the UKRI-GCRF Accelerate hub. With over 15 years of extensive experience in HIV/AIDS, Maternal and Child Health programmes, Samuel’s research interest is on community-based HIV and AIDS programmes for orphans and vulnerable children. Having successfully led small to large scale humanitarian and development projects and consortia funded by the USAID, CDC, DFID, CIDA, SIDA, The Global Fund (GF), BMGF and the UN Humanitarian Funds, Samuel has successfully designed and documented project impact evaluation, conducted operational research and developed compelling field success stories for learning while strengthening multiagency collaboration, creating synergies and ensuring sustainability.
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Silinganisiwe Dzumbunu
Silinganisiwe Dzumbunu
Researcher
• University of Cape Town
Silinganisiwe Dzumbunu is a doctoral student with the University of Cape Town's Centre for Actuarial Research and one of the Accelerate Hub’s Early Career Researchers. Her research focuses on empowerment of adolescents and reproductive experiences over the life-course. She holds a MPhil degree in Demography from the University of Cape Town and a BSc (Honours) degree in Operations Research and Statistics from the National University of Science and Technology, Zimbabwe. Her research interests include adolescents' sexual and fertility behaviour and gender equality.
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Siyanai Zhou
Siyanai Zhou
ECR (PhD student)
• University of Cape Town
Siyanai Zhou is a statistical analyst and Demographer from the University of Cape Town who currently works as a quantitative research assistant for the UKRI GCRF Accelerating Achievement for Africa’s Adolescents (Accelerate) Hub at the Centre for Social Science Research, University of Cape Town. His primary focus is on the application of advanced statistical methodologies and demographic techniques in health and social sciences with experience in quantitative data cleaning, analysis, and management. His current research seeks to apply advanced statistical models to assess long-term ART adherence behaviour of adolescents living with HIV and the associated health outcomes.
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Professor Stefan Dercon
Professor Stefan Dercon
Study PI
• University of Oxford
Stefan Dercon is Professor of Economic Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government and the Economics Department, and a Fellow of Jesus College, University of Oxford. He is also Director of the Centre for the Study of African Economies, and the Development Policy Advisor to the Foreign Secretary at the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. His research interests concern what keeps some people and countries poor: the failures of markets, governments and politics, mainly in Africa, and how to achieve change. His current research work focuses on the psychological challenges of poverty, the political economy of development, the challenges of industrialisation in Africa, the challenges and opportunities of new technologies, and how to organise and finance responses to natural disasters and protracted humanitarian crises.
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Stefani Du Toit
Stefani Du Toit
Researcher
• Stellenbosch University
Stefani du Toit is a Researcher, who has been working for the Institute for Health Course Health Research at Stellenbosch University for just over three years. She works as the project manager for a number of studies conducted locally and internationally, including work focused on perinatal health, adolescence, parenting and trauma.
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Dr Rita Tamambang
Dr Rita Tamambang
Researcher
• University of Ibadan
Rita Frinue Tamambang holds a Doctor of Medicine Degree (MD) with distinction from the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Buea (2016) and a Master of Science degree in Child and Adolescent Mental Health (MSc. CAMH) also with distinction from the Centre for Child and Adolescent Mental health (CCAMH), University of Ibadan, Nigeria (2018). In 2020, she was selected to take part in the prestigious, highly competitive Donald Cohen Fellowship, which is a leadership-training programme for emerging leaders in Child and Adolescent Mental Health organized by the International Association for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Professions (IACAPAP). She recently participated in the Afya Bora Fellowship in Global Health Leadership; another highly selective fellowship aimed at providing health professionals from sub-Saharan Africa with practical skills needed for leadership positions in government and academic health institutions. She currently works at CCAMH as a research fellow on the UK Research and Innovation Global Challenges Research Funds Project on Accelerating Achievements for Africa’s Adolescent Hub, Nigeria Team. In this capacity, through the hub’s research, she has helped identify factors that will enable adolescents in Nigeria achieve the SDGs and has proposed policy reforms to that effect. Her research focus is on the physical and mental health of infants and their mothers with a special interest in adolescent mothers. She has written and published four journal articles on neonatal and adolescent health in Cameroon. In her research she will continue to examine maternal and infant outcomes in pregnant and parenting adolescents.
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Dr William Rudgard
Dr William Rudgard
WP-0 Coordinator
• University of Oxford
William Rudgard is a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Social Policy and Intervention at the University of Oxford. As part of the UKRI Accelerate Hub, his work focuses on identifying factors that may support and empower vulnerable adolescents across countries in Africa to participate fully in this critical period of life. He is particularly interested in the interconnected nature of social vulnerabilities, and the transformative role of health and social protection systems. In addition to substantive research, he coordinates the Accelerate Hub methods work stream “Work Package 0” that aims to identify solutions to arising methodological challenges associated with identifying adolescent development accelerators. Statistical expertise include the use of dynamic panel models, multi-level models, and quasi-experimental methods for impact evaluation.
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Dr Wylene Saal
Dr Wylene Saal
ECR (Postdoc)
• University of Cape Town
Wylene Saal is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Centre for Social Science Research, University of Cape Town. She is a quantitative investigator on the HEY BABY study and has been involved in quantitative data management, data cleaning and is the data holder for the study. Currently, Wylene is investigating patterns of HIV status disclosure, stigma, and mental health among adolescent girls and young women living with HIV. She holds a PhD in Research Psychology from the University of Stellenbosch, where her research focused on common mental disorders (i.e. major depression, generalized anxiety disorder, and alcohol use disorder) among people seeking HIV testing in the Western Cape. Her research interests include adolescent mental health, HIV, research methodology and health psychology.
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Dr Rachel Yates
Dr Rachel Yates
Strategic Advocacy Lead
• University of Oxford
Rachel Yates joined the Accelerate Hub in January 2021 as the Strategic Advocacy Lead. Rachel works with the Hub Directors, researchers, and policy colleagues to develop and deliver the Hub’s advocacy strategy. Rachel has worked in International Development for 25 years including with the UK’s Department for International Development, UNICEF and civil society organisations. She brings extensive policy and programming expertise in poverty reduction, gender equality and social inclusion including sector work on HIV prevention and care, social protection, child protection, with a recent focus on supporting the evidence and learning agenda on child marriage. Rachel has worked extensively in Africa including in Zimbabwe, Ghana, Uganda, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda and Nigeria.
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Hlokoma Mangqalaza
Hlokoma Mangqalaza
Researcher
Hlokoma Mangqalaza is a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Social Science Research at the University of Cape Town. She comes in with experience in conducting qualitative research in underdeveloped areas with young people and healthcare workers. Hlokoma completed her doctorate in 2020 at Stellenbosch University, her areas of research focus on young people living with HIV, education and application of various qualitative data collection methods in research.
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Chelsea Coakley
Chelsea Coakley
Research Officer
• University of Cape Town
Chelsea Coakley is a Research Officer in the Centre for Social Science Research at the University of Cape Town, where she leads adolescent engagement and participation in research activities at the Adolescent Accelerators Research Hub (AARHub). She is a senior investigator on the TAG sub-study, and a co-Investigator on two cluster-randomised controlled trials evaluating school-based sexual and reproductive health programmes for adolescent female learners: “Using all our SKILLZ” in Lusaka, Zambia and “Goals for Girls” in Cape Town, South Africa. She was previously a co-Investigator on two participatory studies working in partnership with young investigators in Cape Town, South Africa and out-of-school adolescents and supporting young collaborators in Neno, Malawi. Chelsea's background is in psychology and behavioural science and public health, and her research interests include adolescent and youth sexual and reproductive health, peer models of health promotion and asset-building, as well as meaningful participation of adolescents and young people in research and decision-making. Her work experience includes large-scale intervention programme design, monitoring and evaluation across eleven Sub-Saharan African countries for international non-profit organisations, private foundations, as well as Canadian and U.S. bi-lateral government funding institutions. She holds a BA in Psychology from McGill University, a MPhil from Stellenbosch University. She is currently a PhD student in the Department of Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Cape Town where she is investigating pathways to positive health outcomes in adolescent health mentorship models.