The Academy of Medical Sciences in the UK has awarded the Newton Advanced Fellowship to Prof De Wet Swanepoel. The grant is named after Sir Isaac Newton.

The aim of the award is to provide its recipients with an opportunity to further develop their research strengths and capabilities through training and collaboration between the University of Pretoria (UP) and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Prof Swanepoel is a professor in UP’s Department of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology, and was instrumental in creating the award-winning HearZA mobile hearing-test app. HearZA has brought a much-needed primary health care screening intervention to thousands of people.

Prof Swanepoel is also adjunct associate professor at the School of Surgery, University of Western Australia, and a senior research fellow at the Ear Science Institute in Perth. He currently serves as President of the International Society of Audiology and deputy editor-in-chief of the highly esteemed International Journal of Audiology.

He holds a B2 rating from the National Research Foundation. The research he will be conducting with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine is based on an integrated approach to mobile hearing and vision services, and on population-based surveys of blindness and hearing loss.

Prof Vasu Reddy, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, congratulated Prof Swanepoel on his achievement and said that the work that he does typifies the Humanities approach to research by prioritising people and benefit to society.