Dr Nicole de Wet
Dr Nicole De Wet is a lecturer in demography and population studies at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), where she obtained a PhD in 2013 after receiving scholarships from the NRF/DAAD In-Country Scholarship Programme, and the Consortium for Advanced Research and Training in Africa (Carta). At the start of her PhD, De Wet was awarded a prestigious Carta Fellowship, and she continues to collaborate with many of the fellows on the programme. After completing her PhD, she was awarded a University of Michigan African Presidential Scholars Fellowship and spent a four-month residency working with the population studies unit at the University of Michigan.
Her research on adolescent health outcomes in South Africa is aligned with government policies aimed at ensuring that young people make a safe and healthy transition to adulthood. Her research utilises robust statistical modelling (rare in the social sciences) to identify risk factors and causes of death that compromise adolescent survival and development. Using model life tables, decomposition techniques and multilevel models, De Wet has identified the leading causes of death among adolescents as HIV, self-harm and transport injuries. These contribute significantly to reducing South Africa’s future labour force. Her research shows that factors like poverty and average community income levels are determinants of risky sexual behaviours and illicit drug use among adolescents, placing them at higher risk of disease and mortality.
Passionate about capacity building in her field, De Wet incorporates her body of research into her teaching at the university. In her short career she has successfully supervised 22 postgraduate students, mostly blacks and women. She is currently supervising eight postgraduate students and, over the past three years, has single-handedly secured funding from the National Research Foundation to host conferences and bring professionals in the field from around the world to train students in her programme.
De Wet has published 12 articles in internationally recognised and peer-reviewed journals, written four book chapters and made 29 presentations on her research. She serves as a peer-reviewer for eight social science and population-related journals, is a member of several international population research associations and serves on four committees in the Wits School of Social Sciences.
Having received a fellowship under the Global Fellowship Programme of the Berlin Social Science Center and International Social Science Council, De Wet will leave for Germany later this year to work on a study on the economic challenges faced by young people in South Africa. She is also the holder of several research grants, including a NRF Thuthuka postdoctoral grant, which has made it possible to grant scholarships to two South African master’s students working in the area of adolescent health.