Winner Professor Azwihangwisi Helen Mavhandu-Mudzusi
Professor Azwihangwisi MavhanduMudzusi is a professor in the department of health studies at the University of South Africa (Unisa), and the chairperson of the Research Ethics Review Committee of Unisa’s College of Human Sciences. She has a PhD in public administration from the University of Venda.
Mavhandu-Mudzusi’s main research objectives focus on reducing the number of new HIV infections, and improving the quality of life of people living with HIV in rural universities. Integral to these objectives is the work that she does in advocating for the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) students. She has developed an advocacy, care and support model for these students, and a management model for staff and students living with HIV. The implementation of these models has assisted in economically empowering both women living with HIV, and homosexual and gender nonconforming women in the changing world of the workplace.
She has a NRF C3 rating and is the author of 29 peer-reviewed publications, a book chapter and 23 peerreviewed conference papers. She is involved in a multi-country and multi-university project on destabilising heteronormativity in Southern African Development Community institutions of higher education. She is the principal investigator in a collaborative cross-national research project with the University of Liège and Alliant International University on the attitudes of heterosexual university students towards same-sex marriage and parenting. MavhanduMudzusi has successfully supervised three PhD and 15 master’s students, and is currently supervising 10 PhD and 10 master’s students at Unisa, in addition to mentoring two doctoral students in the New Generation of Academics’ Programme, one at Sefako Makgatho University and the other at the University of Limpopo.
A professional nurse, registered with the South African Nursing Council, Mavhandu-Mudzusi is an MAC AIDS Fund Leadership Initiative Fellow. She is the guest editor for two journals, as well as a reviewer for several international and local journals and conferences.