Applied anthropologist and social impact consultant with fifteen years experience leading research, strategy, knowledge translation, learning systems and engagement for diverse organizations.
Clients have included policy think tanks, universities, international donors, NGOs, and local governments across Southern Africa and Canada, including the Gates Foundation, INCLUDE Knowledge Platform (IDRC), Atlantic Fellows for Racial Equity, and The City of Cape Town.
Skilled at translating qualitative research, sharp social theory, and lived experience into co-created tools, systems and strategy that shift how organizations deliver on equity and impact.
Brings senior project leadership, client relations, and consulting experience from a decade of independent consulting and a Co-Director role at a transdisciplinary social impact advisory firm.
Shows sustained commitment to anti-racist and decolonial practice and a questioning orientation to the social "development" landscape.
Seeking to bring this blend of research-driven practice, participatory practice, and systems-change strategy to organizations moving toward a more just, care-full future.
Research. Strategy. Facilitation. Storytelling
Clients and partners I've collaborated with
(either as a freelancer or appointed project leader)
Care Design
Journey Mapping. Ethnography. Co-Design.
Leveraging human-centred design principles to identify frictions, touch points and moments of meaning in the care journey; identify levers of change at a program or system level; and co-design to support care
Early Childhood Development
Learning from community-embedded best practiceEthnographic research with four outperforming early childhood development programs, identifying best practice and transferrable design lessons
Climate & Healthcare
Co-Designing PreparednessUsing photo voice and participatory research to co-design early warning systems for pregnant people facing rising temperatures
Primary Healthcare Innovation
Anthropological reflections on a digital health pilot
FOR: Percept and Actuarial Society of South Africa
Why the World Needs Anthropology Conference, Berlin
Sample Projects
Convening & Facilitation
Drawing together a diverse voice to imagine collective futures
Workshop design, panel convening, facilitation and moderation for strategic foresight, policy consultation, co-design, storytelling and collective imagination
Sample Projects
Sample Projects
Pathology and Pleasure in the Digital Age
For TMRW Gallery, Johannesburg
Indlulamithi 2030 National Scenarios
Led research, engagement and convening for South Africa's 2030 Scenario Planning, drawing together political, industry, academic, civil society and youth leaders to vision the nation's future.
Served on founding Steering Committee and as key spokesperson for the National Scenarios.
Learning Systems
Alternative approaches to designing, delivering and undertaking monitoring and evaluation
Learning System Design. Indicator Design. Patient Experience Measurement Frameworks
Sample Projects
Learning & Improvement Systems
Designing and building systems for continuous learning, accountability and improvement, including:
For BC Mental Health and Substance Use:
Design and Implementation of a Patient Experience Measurement system to drive learning, accountability and quality improvement
Co-development of wise practice for analyzing and reporting on Indigenous data and measuring Cultural Safety
For Leapfrog to Value:
Development of Patient-Reported Experience and Outcome Measures for value-based maternal healthcare
For City of Cape Town:
Co-development of a set of indicators to measure and monitor urban health, including social and structural determinants
Knowledge Translation
Gathering, crafting and refining story and evidence to inform advocacy and communication
Sample Projects
Health Equity
advocacy material. public health literacy. policy briefs
Published seven articles in six issues of the Treatment Action Campaign's Equal Treatment Magazine (issue 37–42), including pieces on the National Health Insurance and community health worker policy and ARV drug pricing.
Produced a series of policy briefs for Paediatric AIDS Treatment for Africa on: the role of community health workers in crafting a global health agenda and transitioning adolescents into adult HIV-care
Campaign Copywriting
Research, copywriting and content design for Create Change
Copy for Bumb'Ingomso's lifestyle guide: a movement connecting young women and girls
Writing. Editing. Storytelling. Communication
Research
Designing and leading end-to-end qualitative and secondary research to inform policy, programming, design and strategy.
Sample of Past Work
Health Systems
Collaborated on a series of multidisciplinary research reports on non-communicable diseases in South Africa
FOR: Percept and Actuarial Society of South Africa
Ecologies of community care
This body of work includes:
A multi-site ethnography and set of working papers on community health workers reimagining, and making possible, primary healthcare policy (MA dissertation, AIDS in Society Research Unit)
Scoping review and strategic advisory to inform program design for Grow Great (a community health worker-led child nutrition initiative) and a wider coalition of early childhood development partners (2018, 2022)
Policy and landscape analysis to support a UNAIDS review (2011), an issue of the Treatment Action Campaign's Equal Treatment Magazine, and Paediatric ADIS Treatment for Africa's CHW advocacy
A publication on Care and Caring for Transformation
Adolescent HIV
Served as co-investigator and project manager on Mzantsi Wakho, a longitudinal study of adolescent HIV
Led a multi-method ethnographic study (PhD), working alongside a group of more than 20 youth interlocutors as well as young research assistants. Methods included: body-mapping, community mapping, “ideal clinic” design, and role-play.
Collaboratively designed and convened youth-led policy consultations and dissemination events with the study's Teen Advisory Group, directly informing public policy for South Africa’s Health and Social Development ministries, including the National Adolescent and Youth Health Policy.
Research Design. In-depth interviewing. Focus Groups. Ethnography. Arts-based Reseach. Literature Review. Evidence Synthesis. Analysis. Report-Writing. Grant Writing
Professional Portfolio
Freelance Offerings
Thought Leadership
Home is where the health is
Daily Maverick
Challenging assumptions about school dropout
Daily Maverick
Five Ways in which South Africa can advance equity
Daily Maverick
How nightclub bouncers police the social order
The Conversation
Presentation on how we applied the Anthro lens at Percept, Transdisciplinary Advisory
Why the World Needs Anthropology