Marisa Casale is an Extraordinary Professor (having joined as Extraordinary Senior Researcher in April 2017) at the University of the Western Cape’s School of Public Health (SOPH) and an Associate Member of Oxford University’s Department of Social Policy and Intervention.

She has a multi-disciplinary background, having obtained her undergraduate degree in Banking and Economic Science (University of Siena, Italy), her Masters in Development Studies (University of Padua, Italy) and her PhD in Health Psychology (University of Cape Town, South Africa).

Marisa started her career in development finance, but has spent the past sixteen years conducting health research in South and Southern Africa. She has been a Senior Researcher and Health Governance and Finance Programme Head at the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Health Economics and HIV/AIDS Research Division (HEARD) and a Senior Teaching and Research Fellow at Oxford University’s Department of Social Health and Intervention. She is currently Work Package Lead and Member of the Executive Group of the UKRI GCRF Accelerating Achievement for Africa’s Adolescents Hub, led by Oxford University. Marisa has worked extensively within multi-country partner networks, including with UNAIDS, UNICEF, IFPRI, Metropolitan Life, IDRC, ODI, SIDA, South African government departments and international university partners. Her multi-disciplinary research has focused mainly on caregiver and child health in the context of HIV, comprising work on HIV prevention and treatment adherence among youth, social networks and health, health financing and the economic aspects of HIV.

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