Prof. Ntobeko Ntusi
Incoming President of the South African Medical Research Council, Prof. Ntobeko Ntusi.
Professor Ntusi is the Head of Medicine and the Clinical Lead for Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance (CMR) and Cardiovascular Computed Tomography (CCT) at Groote Schuur Hospital and is appointed as a Cardiologist, Professor and Chair of Medicine in the Department of Medicine in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Cape Town (UCT).
His primary research interests comprise inflammatory heart disease (including HIV-associated cardiovascular disease), non-ischaemic cardiomyopathy and non-invasive imaging, in particular with CMR. He has in-depth training and expertise in CMR and CCT. Professor Ntusi has extensive experience with basic science, translational and clinical research. He currently supervises postgraduate students and is conducting several single-centre mechanistic clinical studies, which are mostly CMR-based. Through his research, Professor Ntusi has built strong links with colleagues in clinical cardiology, physics and biomedical engineering, tuberculosis and HIV medicine, rheumatology, immunology, molecular genetics, and biomedical statistics; and he has shown capacity for performance in scientific investigational teams and is suited to being part of multi-disciplinary and multi-centre clinical studies. The current application builds logically on his work on CMR in HIV-associated heart disease.
He obtained a BSc (Hons) degree in Cellular and Molecular Biology from Haverford College, USA, and an MBChB degree from UCT, before completing a fellowship in Internal Medicine through the Colleges of Medicine of South Africa. He served his internship and later worked as a community service medical officer and senior house officer at Frere Hospital in East London, South Africa. He read for a DPhil in Cardiovascular Medicine at the University of Oxford and completed his MD in Cardiology at UCT. He is a qualified cardiologist, through the Colleges of Medicine of South Africa.
He has been actively engaged and has contributed to improved understanding of cardiomyopathy, inflammatory heart disease and heart failure in South Africa and abroad.
Professor Ntusi is the holder of various awards and honours and has published widely. He will take office as the new President and CEO of the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) on 1 July 2024. He will join at the SHSPH Research Day on 26 June 2024 to discuss his vision for the SAMRC moving forward.
Dr Ahmed Ogwell Ouma
Dr Ahmed Ogwell is the Vice President of Global Health Strategy at the UN Foundaton. He is the immediate former Deputy Director General at Africa CDC where he led the programmes strategy and delivery.
He was also the inaugural Deputy Director at Africa CDC and then its Acting Director, leading Africa’s complex and successful response to the COVID-19 pandemic and other health emergencies.
Previosuly, Ahmed worked for nearly a decade with WHO at both its headequarters in Geneva, and the regional office for Africa in Brazzaville. At country level, he had a distinguished career, holding senior positions at the Ministry of Health of Kenya where he set up the departments of Non-communicable Diseases and then that of International Health Relations (Global Affairs).
Dr Ahmed is an alumni of the University of Nairobi in Kenya, as well as the Centre for International Health at the University of Bergen in Norway
Prof. Joyce Shirinde (Moderator)
Prof. Joyce Shirinde - RESCOM and (Academic Advisory Committee) AAC Chair SHSPH
Prof Joyce Shirinde is an Associate Professor in the School of Health Systems and Public Health (SHSPH) at the University of Pretoria's Faculty of Health Sciences. She serves as the Head of Division for Behaviour and Health Management Sciences and also oversees the Health Promotion Unit. With a strong academic background in Environmental Health and Public Health, Prof. Shirinde's research focuses on examining human health outcomes in diverse environmental contexts, including the impacts of air pollution, climate-related factors, and the complex interplay between social dynamics and environmental influences. Prof. Shirinde earned her PhD in Public Health from the University of Pretoria.
She also holds an MPH, along with a Post Graduate Diploma in Education for the Health Sciences. Her expertise extends to mentoring and supervising postgraduate students at both Masters and PhD levels within the school, providing guidance on research projects aligned with her areas of specialization and research interests.
Dr Peter Mbondji (Panellist)
Ebongué (Peter) MBONDJI, PhD.
Dr Mbondji is a senior public health expert with over 24 years of experience in health systems and services strengthening, as well as responses to major public health threats. He has spent more than 20 years working with international organizations, including 10 years as a Regional Advisor at the WHO Regional Office for Africa, covering 47 countries.
Dr Mbondji has extensive experience collaborating with global institutions and partners, coordinating regional and sub-regional public health projects in Africa, and providing technical support to countries. As a core member of the team that developed the African Health Observatory, Dr Mbondji led the establishment of health observatories across African countries to enhance health outcomes. His contributions have significantly improved the availability and use of strategic health information, research outputs and evidence for policy dialogue and public health threat responses. He has also coordinated the CRVS agenda for WHO/AFRO and played a key role in monitoring health situations and trends in the continent, including progress on MDGs and SDGs. Furthermore, he has been involved in coordinating response to major outbreaks, including Ebola and Covid-19.
In addition to his extensive field experience, Dr. Mbondji has been a senior university lecturer for the past five years and currently chairs a private public health university institute in Cameroon. He has published over 35 papers and technical monographs on various public health topics. Fluent in English and French, with knowledge of Portuguese and Spanish, Dr Mbondji has worked in more than 70 countries worldwide.
Dr Siphiwe Mndaweni (Panellist)
Name: Dr Siphiwe Mndaweni. Designation: Chief Executive Officer. Office of Health Standards Compliance
Dr Siphiwe Mndaweni is a public health professional with over 15 years’ experience in the public and private sector. She is currently the Chief Executive Officer of the Office of Health Standards Compliance (OHSC), a regulatory body established for the purpose of improving quality and safety of health services in health facilities in South Africa. Dr Mndaweni’s career and leadership journey are imbued and manifest in a number of entities she has worked for nationally and internationally.
Her professional accomplishments include providing strategic leadership and leading programme implementation in several countries in the SADC region in strategic health programmes including HIV, TB, Maternal and Child Health Programmes, youth and women health. She has a wealth of experience and worked in several African countries in policy development, quality improvement, research and capacity building.
Dr Mndaweni’s previous roles and positions include amongst others:
Dr Mndaweni holds the following qualifications:
Dr Edzani Mphaphuli (Panellist)
Dr Edzani Mphaphuli (MBChB (UCT), FCPHM (SA), MMed Public Health Medicine (UP), MPH (UCT), Dip HIVMan (SA)) is a public health medicine specialist currently leading the Grow Great Campaign in South Africa, a campaign with an audacious goal to end stunting by 2030.
With extensive experience in healthcare leadership, she played a pivotal role in the national COVID-19 response, overseeing strategic planning and human resource mobilisation for the vaccine rollout. Her diverse background includes directing the KeReady mobile health outreach project, and leading health programs for Advanced HIV and drug-resistant TB.
She has worked at various national institutes such as the National Institute for Communicable Diseases, National Institute for Occupational Health, Office of the Health Ombuds, and Office of Health Standards Compliance as a Public Health Medicine Registrar. She started her career as an intern at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital and since then she has been driven by a passion for equitable healthcare, which she combines with strategic vision and hands-on implementation to address enduring public health challenges.
Ms Akhona Tshangela (Panellist)
Ms. Akhona Tshangela is a public health professional with over 15 years of service.
She has successfully implemented and lead programs at both national and continental level, demonstrating exceptional expertise in dealing with complex public health issues and contextualising these to the African continent. She was one of the pioneer staff for the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, under the African Union, and has supported in the strengthening of Africa’s health systems through leading programs such as regional health product manufacturing and ensuring during the joint African COVID-19 response that decision making was informed by the available science and data at the time by co-chairing the science, regulations and standards technical working group. She has worked closely with several international and local partners including the private sector in shaping policy and garnering political and financial support at the most highest decision making levels.
She is a trained field epidemiologist and has supported a number of outbreak responses across the continent having obtained her Masters in Public Health from the University of Pretoria and her Bachelors of Science in Medicine (Honours) degree in Human Genetics at the University of Cape Town. Ms. Akhona joins the WomenLift Health team as the Southern Africa director with a strong passion for inclusivity and a steadfast belief that public health is missing out on an integral leadership resource by mostly limiting females, especially, in major decision making on public health issues.
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