Nelesh Govender heads the Centre for Healthcare-Associated Infections, Antimicrobial Resistance and Mycoses at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases. He is a medical mycologist and epidemiologist and has worked in public health since 2006.

Associate Professor Tracey Naledi is the Deputy Dean of Health Services at UCT, a medical doctor and a Public Health Physician. Her work has focussed on policy development, health system strengthening, addressing health inequity and strengthening systems for health.

Some of her career highlights include being part of the team that started the first PMTCT programme in the public sector in South Africa and providing compelling evidence of the feasibility of delivering this programme on the Primary Health Care platform in the public sector; being part of the African Comprehensive HIV/AIDS Partnerships (ACHAP) – a collaboration between the Government of Botswana, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and The Merck Company Foundation/Merck & Co., Inc., which supported the government of Botswana to develop a comprehensive approach for HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, care and support including delivering the first ARV programme in Africa.She led the establishment of intersectoral wellness programmes in the province which includes the Western Cape on Wellness (WoW) and the First Thousand Days programmes. She was the Chief of Party for a large USAID funded primary health care project supporting five provinces in South Africa.

She is a past Board Member of Child Safe and the Public Health Association of South Africa (PHASA); current advisory Board Member of Perinatal Mental Health Project; founding Chairperson of Tekano, Atlantic Fellows for Health Equity in South Africa and a member of the Council for Public Health Medicine of the Colleges of Medicine of South Africa. She is an honorary senior lecturer in the School of Public Health at the University of Cape Town. Dr Naledi is currently undertaking her PhD in Medicine focusing on Adolescent Health and HIV at the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation at UCT. She is a Discovery Foundation Fellow and the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation Fellow.

Prof. Andre Mochan is an Associate Professor in the Division of Neurology, the Clinical Head of Neurology at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital since 2009 and the Academic Head of Neurology in the Department of Neurosciences in the School of Clinical Medicine. He is the current Secretary of the College of Neurology and recent office bearer of the Neurology Association of South Africa (NASA).

In 2014 he established a dedicated multidisciplinary Motor Neuron Disease / Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (MND/ALS) Clinic at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital. Through the MND/ALS clinic he participates in the drive for genomic research on African ALS patients and is Co-Principal Investigator of the newly launched ALS-Africa NET study employing cutting edge WGS techniques, performed locally, to characterise uncharted genes in ALS. He also is the initiator and Principal Investigator of the South African Neurology COVID-19 database.

Dr. Kirti Ranchod is a neurologist from South Africa, Global Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health, co-founder and chair of the Africa Brain Health Network and has served on the board of Alzheimer’s South Africa. She has extensive clinical experience in medicine and neurology. Kirti founded Memorability to make brain health tools accessible, practical and effective including online and in person courses, talks ,and workshops. She runs a series of talks on “Investing in Our Cultural Capital for Better Brain Health’ at the Origins Centre, University of Witwatersrand. She completed a project with REMI East Africa in Uganda to support healthcare workers with practical mental health tools and has run several corporate brain health workshops. Interests include the role of traditional practices and Indigenous Knowledge Systems in promoting health, the neuroscience of art, and understanding the different perceptions of memory.

Wambui Karanja is a psychologist and independent consultant who works in research, advocacy, and caregiving of people with dementia in various African settings. Wambui coordinate the Africa Brain Health Network, an organization that aims to promote awareness of brain health across the lifespan in Africa and beyond. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Kenyatta University, was a graduate attaché at the British Institute in Eastern Africa and researched perceptions of cognitive decline and dementia among informal caregivers. She is an alumnus of Young African Leadership Initiative, (YALI) East Africa, and a global Atlantic fellow for Equity in Brain Health.