Edith Phalane, 33, is a research manager and specialist scientist for the South African Medical Research Council at the University of Johannesburg’s Pan African Centre for Epidemics Research Extramural Unit. Part of her work involves knowledge generation, capacity building and contributing towards public health and epidemiologic expertise to respond to pandemics by contributing to the transformation agenda, the National Development Plan and the United Nations’ sustainable development goals. Since joining the research council, she has assisted master’s students.
Edith is part of the Boloka Data Repository project which seeks to harness heterogenous data to evaluate the potential effect of HIV responses among key populations. Through this work, she has been exposed to working with diverse groups nationally and internationally such as Johns Hopkins University, Emory University and the University of South Carolina.
She has co-authored several research papers and together with her mentor, Refilwe Phaswana-Mafuya, she recently co-presented and co-authored two conference abstracts at the 5th National Big Data Health Science Conference in the US. She is also a mentor and judge at the Eskom Expo for young scientists.
I am contributing to capacity building and graduation of the next generation of public health and epidemiologic expertise to respond to pandemics; contribute to the transformation agenda, National Development Plan and sustainable development goals. This was my first time graduating master students and it made me proud to be part of their journey.
I am proud to be part of the Boloka Data Repository project. This project seeks to harness big heterogeneous data to evaluate the potential effect of HIV responses among key populations. The evidence generated will inform the prioritisation of HIV care gaps in a granular manner, scale up what works, and focus on the unmet HIV care needs of key populations to achieve the greatest impact in these populations with disproportionately higher HIV risk of onward transmission.
My mentor is Professor Refilwe Phaswana-Mafuya. I have worked with Prof Refilwe for the past six years. She has contributed significantly to my academic and personal growth. I have grown from being a doctoral student to a graduate under her mentorship in 2021 to working with her as a postdoctoral research fellow in 2021 and becoming a research manager/specialist scientist in the South African Medical Research Council/University of Johannesburg (SAMRC/UJ) Pan African Centre for Epidemics Research (PACER) Extramural Unit (2022 to date).
Prof Phaswana-Mafuya has nurtured and supported me in conducting high-quality, cutting-edge, scientifically sound, and innovative HIV and related research. She exposed me to grant writing opportunities which resulted in successful application for the establishment of the first-ever SAMRC/UJPACER. This contributed to the establishment of new public health-related research entities, development strategies to build emerging public health scientists’ capacities, and strengthening the public health research infrastructure. I have served in various capacities on the projects, namely as a project manager, co-investigator, and co-principal investigator, and these are all geared towards developing my research leadership profile.
Through this work, I have been exposed to working with diverse groups of collaborators both nationally and internationally such as the likes of Johns Hopkins University, Emory University and the University of South Carolina. I have co-authored several research papers, and conference proceedings as well as co-presenting them at international and national conferences under the support of my mentor. Together, with my mentor, we have recently co-presented and co-authored two conference abstracts at the 5th National Big Data Health Science Conference, 2-3 February 2024, South Carolina, USA.