In 2018, ACMS was looking to appoint an internationally recognised migration scholar to become part of the centre’s leadership team. Congratulations to Professor Jo Vearey who has been appointed as Associate Professor in Human Mobility and Migration in the Global South and Director. Jo brings with her extensive experience in academic scholarship and postgraduate supervision, institutional development (including fundraising), project management, and the translation of academic research into popular media and policy processes.

Jo holds an Honorary Fellowship with the School of Social and Political Science at the University of Edinburgh, and a Senior Fellowship at the Centre for Peace, Development and Democracy at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. In 2015, Jo was awarded a Humanities and Social Science Wellcome Trust Investigator Award. Jo coordinates the Migration and Health Project Southern Africa (maHp).  Involving a series of unique research and public engagement projects, maHp aims to explore (and evaluate) ways to generate and communicate knowledge in order to improve responses to migration, health and well-being in the SADC region.

Jo holds a MSc in the Control of Infectious Diseases (LSHTM, 2003), a PhD in Public Health (Wits, 2010), and has been rated by the National Research Foundation. In 2014, 2015 and 2016, Jo received a Friedel Sellschop Award from the University of the Witwatersrand for outstanding young researchers. She was a Marie Curie Research Fellow in 2013, at the UNESCO Chair on Social and Spatial Inclusion of Migrants, University of Venice (SSIM-IUAV), Venice, Italy.

With a commitment to social justice and the development of pro-poor policy responses, Jo’s research explores international, regional, national and local responses to migration, health, and urban vulnerabilities. Her research interests focus on urban health, public health, migration and health, the social determinants of health, HIV, informal settlements and sex work. Jo is particularly interested in knowledge production, dissemination and utilisation including the use of visual and arts-based methodologies.

We wish her all the best as she takes on this leading role at ACMS!