Sharon Fonn (MBBCh, DOH, DEpi, FFCH, PhD, MASSAf) is a full professor in the School of Public Health at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. She has been the Head of the School of Public Health and Acting Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand. She currently co-leads the Consortium of Advanced Research Training in Africa (CARTA), is the past president of the Association of Schools of Public Health in Africa (ASPHA), and was a panel member of the Market Inquiry into the private health care sector for the Competition Commission of South Africa (2014-19). Her areas of expertise include Gender and rights; Women’s Health; Policy development and implementation; Health systems research; Research methods training; National and international multi-country studies and Curriculum development. She has worked in various research-related capacities with a number of international agencies including TDR/WHO; RHR/WHO; World Bank; UNFPA; DfID; SIDA; and NIH. Professor Fonn spent a decade as research director of the Women’s Health Project. Previously Professor Fonn set up ‘Birth-to-Ten’ (now Twenty Plus), a unique birth cohort following over 3000 children in Soweto, South Africa. Before that, she served the newly developed trade union movement providing health and safety training and conducting research; and is an experienced manager-innovator of rural and urban public health services. Her work on cervical cancer and development of the national cancer control programme for South Africa and her work on health systems development “Health Workers for Change” is internationally recognized. Rather than being a super-specialist in one particular area, she has taken a multidisciplinary approach, using a mix of research methods, to work in a range of areas with the aim of impacting policy and implementation of health and related interventions to improve population health outcomes. Her work has always included an educational component for various audiences. She has developed a curriculum in occupational health, women’s health & gender, health systems development, and health equity. Professor Fonn was awarded the South African Ministry of Science and Technology’s Distinguished Scientist Award for contributions to the quality of life of women (2005), has been a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa since 2004, and was a Woodrow Wilson Centre Scholar in 2009 and is currently Fulbright Senior Research Scholar. She serves on several national and international committees, is involved in international and United Nations initiatives. Some of her work has led to policy changes adopted nationally and has influenced international discourse. She was the first woman invited to deliver the annual T N Krishnan Memorial Lecture at the Sree Chitra Institute in Kerala India. Professor Fonn has served as an advisor to the South African Department of Health and the Department of Science of Technology; she has been a member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council. She has been a reviewer for the European Commission Framework programmes, the US National Institutes of Health, and the World Health Organization. Professor Fonn has widely published in peer-reviewed journals, books and book chapters, technical reports, and lay educational publications. In 2015 Prof Fonn was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Prof Fonn has won many research grants, she raised over $10 million (US) to build the new School of Public Health Building and has raised over $35 million (US) to support the Consortium for Advanced Research raining in Africa www.cartafricaorg
