Professor Simbayi is the Deputy Chief Executive Officer for Research of the Human Sciences Research Council. He is also an Honorary Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health at the University of Cape Town. He holds a Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) degree in Experimental Psychology from the University of Sussex in England, United Kingdom. His career has included 15 years as a full academic at the Universities of Zambia, Bophuthatswana (now North-West University), Port Elizabeth (now Nelson Mandela University ), University fort Hare, and University of Western Cape, the last four of which are in South Africa and 19 years at the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) as a researcher. While at the HSRC, his research work has focused mainly on second-generation HIV behavioral surveillance especially at national and local levels as well as in different economic sectors, HIV/AIDS-related stigma and discrimination, orphans and vulnerable children, determinants of HIV infection (such as poverty, alcohol and drug use, gender-based violence, sex in the presence of blood, multiple sexual partnerships, and male circumcision), and theory-based HIV/STI social and behavioural risk reduction interventions among both men and women in the general population, people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV) who are aware of their status, and men who were recently circumcised using both medical and traditional methods. He has published over 145 scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals, 25 research reports, 13 book chapters, and also co-edited a book entitled HIV/AIDS in South Africa 25 Years on: Psychosocial Perspectives which was published by Springer of New York in 2009.
