STAFF OF THE SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH
Professor and Director Prof Uta Lehmann, MA, PhD (Hannover) Uta Lehmann is a social scientist by training and has worked in public health and health personnel education for 30 years. She joined the SOPH in 1999, and has been its director from 2009 to 2012, and again since 2017. Her interests and expertise lie in health policy and systems research, human resource development, and qualitative research. Her research projects have included a focus on understanding how relationships, power and politics impact on the functioning of health systems, and exploring ways to support the voice and capacity of frontline providers and community health workers. She has led capacity strengthening initiatives for human resources development with sister institutions in other African countries and with international partners. Uta works extensively with the WHO and is the co-ordinator of the WHO Collaborating Centre for research and training in human resources for health.
Emeritus professors Emeritus Prof David Sanders, MBChB (Birmingham), DCH (RCS Eng), MRCP (UK), DTPH (London), DSc (Hon Causa) (UCT) David Sanders headed the SOPH from its inception in 1993 till 2009. David passed away unexpectedly on 30 August 2019. He was not only a well-renowned academic who shaped research and teaching in public health for almost five decades, but was also a consummate activist and commentator who spoke truth to power – a great public intellectual. He was a founding member of the People’s Health Movement (PHM) and Tekano Fellowship Programme. At the time of his passing, David held the position of co-chair of PHM and Chairperson of the Governing Board of the Chronic Diseases Initiative for Africa; and was working on an updated second edition of his seminal book The Struggle for Health. (See our tribute to David on page 58).
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Emeritus Prof Thandi Puoane, B(Cur), BA Soc Sci (UNISA), MPH, DrPH (Berkeley) Thandi Puoane has a background in nursing, has taught at universities in South Africa and the USA and has been a principal investigator for a range of research projects. She has extensive experience in nursing, teaching and public health research. Her research areas include child nutrition including the hospital management of severe malnutrition; identification of CVD risk factors, particularly obesity; participatory action research and monitoring and evaluation of programmes. Recently she has been working with community health workers in developing and implementing community-based programmes for prevention and control of NCDs. Thandi is a member of Chronic Disease Initiative for Africa and is the Cape Town PI of the global Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiological study. She is rated as a C2 scientist by the National Research Foundation. Thandi has written several chapters in books and has published widely in local and international peer reviewed journals.
NRF SARChI Chairs Prof Asha George, MSc (Harvard), DPhil (Sussex) Asha George joined the SOPH in 2016 as the South African Research Chair (SARChI) in Health Systems, Complexity and Social Change. Asha is a qualitative researcher focuses on the frontline interface and governance of services, taking into consideration community and health worker perspectives. Her longer-term national level work includes partnering with allies across community, district, state and national health systems in India to advance maternal health from a gender and rights perspective. She has worked in Mexico with government ministries and the UN system to advance the Beijing and Cairo agendas for women’s health and rights. Since 2016, Asha has been on the board of Health Systems Global, serving as its vice-chair from 2016 to 2018 and chair from 2018 to 2020. She currently leads the Drivers Working Group for Countdown to 2030, is a commissioner for the Lancet Commission on
