Francois van Loggerenberg

I trained as a research psychologist in South Africa. From 2002 to 2012 I was employed at the Nelson R Mandela School of Medicine in Durban, South Africa, where I worked initially as the study coordinator on an HIV pathogenesis study at the Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA). In this post, I was responsible for study setup, rollout and ongoing conduct of the trial, including coordinating the development of the protocol, all regulatory and ethics submissions, study communication and the day-to-day supervision of clinic staff. Subsequently I was appointed to the roles of study coordinator, study director, co-investigator, and principal investigator of various HIV prevention, pathogenesis and treatment trials. Between 2007 and 2009 I was also responsible for setting up and heading the Quality Assurance Department and supervising the internal monitors.

In 2005 I was awarded a Doris Duke Foundation Operations Research for AIDS Care and Treatment in Africa (ORACTA) grant that funded my PhD work in Durban, South Africa, on enhancing adherence to antiretroviral therapy (2011, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine). I was also responsible for providing teaching and supervision to a range of medical students, focusing on research methodology and biostatistics. Post-doctorate I was appointed Scientific Lead on the Global Health Network, University of Oxford. The Global Health Network is a collection of online research communities set up for and by researchers, focusing on specific therapeutic areas (e.g. respiratory disease), types of research (e.g. diagnostics), or as crosscutting research support communities (e.g. research ethics). We are currently involved in a program of methodology research to determine barriers to conducting health research in low- and middle-income countries, and using Internet technologies to overcome these. I was also co-investigator in a Stanford-Oxford Li Ka Shing foundation-funded study assessing the usefulness of machine data from point-of-care diagnostic machines in Africa. Both studies used big data analysis technologies in novel ways to address health and wellbeing in low resource settings. I was a research associate at Green Templeton College between 2014 and 2019 and was a college advisor, providing pastoral care and support. Most recently I was a Trial Manager for a cluster randomised trial to test an integrated behavioural activation and parenting intervention in HIV positive pregnant women in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, and was based in the Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford.