Co-investigators

Linda Theron (D.Ed., guidance & counselling) is a professor of educational psychology at the University of Pretoria, SA, an HPCSA-registered Educational Psychologist, and an extraordinary professor in the Optentia Research Unit, North-West University, SA. Her clinical and research interest is in the multisystemic factors that inform youth resilience to structural violence, with special interest in how context shapes African young people’s pathways of resilience to mental health and wellbeing. Linda’s track-record of funded studies and publications align with this interest, as do the studies of 60 post-graduate students whom she has mentored to completion.

The R-NEET study is the first to concurrently examine the multiple systemic factors associated with the resilience of African youth exclusively — I am privileged to be leading this ambitious project in collaboration with the expert R-NEET team, well-respected community partners, and our inspiring youth advisors.

Dr Olufunmilayo Fawole is a Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Medical Statistics, Faculty of Public Health, College of Medicine, University of Ibadan. She is public health physician. On the R-NEET project she will support the project work packages 3 and 6, which involves: (i) health and environmental assessments and (ii) the additional multi-systemic factors associated with resilience to depression – stress biomarkers and activity levels.

I am proud to be part of R-NEET because it is an innovative project aimed to investigate how multiple factors influence the mental health of African youth who NEETs. The results will inform the development of resilience mechanisms to prevent depression among this population. Also, it will provide the opportunity to provide health assessments for the participating NEETs including environmental assessments in ecologically stressed communities.

Dr Diane Levine began her career as a primary school teacher and was then in civil service before entering academia. As a result she has been – and continues to be – committed to social change through research and education. She is an Assistant Professor/Lecturer and Impact Lead, School of Criminology, Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Leicester. Her research is focused on understanding the ways in which children and young people survive and thrive when life is challenging, particularly in a digital world, and largely in Majority World contexts.

Di contributes her experience of interdisciplinary research to the project, through co-leadership of work on study contextualisation, understanding of lived experiences, and open science/data sharing.

Dr Zainab Mai-Bornu is a Lecturer in International Politics School of History, Politics and International Relations, at the University of Leicester. Previously, she was a Research Fellow at the Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations (CTPSR), Coventry University and a Postdoctoral Fellow (ESRC) at the Department of Social and Policy Sciences at the University of Bath.

Her primary research focuses on inequalities, conflict, gender, youth, natural resources, vernacular security and development in Africa. Much of her current work is concerned with amplifying marginalised voices within the context of vernacular security. Working with youth in stressed communities in Nigeria and South Africa is an opportunity to do this.

I am honoured to be an R-NEET investigator and in particular, the opportunity to co-deliver and implement this project with the youth is extraordinary.

Olanrewaju Olaniyan is a professor of economics at the University of Ibadan with over 29 years of research, consulting and teaching experience. He is experienced in social policy work in developing countries. He is a Council member of the National Transfer Account Research network, University of Hawaii. He led a team organized by the National Planning Commission to prepare the first Social Protection Policy for Nigeria in 2003. The Health Policy Training and Research Programme (HPTRP), University of Ibadan, which he leads is an institutional partner of the UNFPA examining how generational transfers affect different lifecycles of the Nigerian population.

The potential results of this study make me imagine a different prosperous development trajectory that South Africa and Nigeria can follow, if millions of youths that are neither in employment, education nor training are gainfully engaged in productive activity.

Dov Stekel is Professor of Computational Biology at the School of Biosciences, University of Nottingham. With a first degree in mathematics, Dov has 30 years’ experience of applying mathematical, statistical and computational methods to wide ranging biomedical problems, including cancer and drug resistance infections. Dov’s recent work is underpinned by the One Health paradigm, that human, animal and environmental health are intrinsically interlinked and must be tackled together. Dov will be co-leading the modelling and data analysis work packages of the R-NEET project.

Dov is delighted to be involved in the R-NEET project, with the unique opportunity to use his skills to make a positive impact on people’s lives, in such an ambitious and multi-dimensional project.

Michael Ungar, Ph.D., is a Professor of Social Work at Dalhousie University where he holds the Canada Research Chair in Child, Family and Community Resilience. His research on multisystemic resilience across cultures has made him the most cited Social Work scholar in the world. Building on more than $16M in funded research, Dr Ungar’s work is relied upon by numerous educational institutions, government agencies and not-for-profits to guide their approaches to nurturing the maintaining the wellbeing of child and adult populations experiencing adversity. He is the author of more than 250 scholarly papers and 18 books for mental health professionals, researchers and lay audiences.

It’s a pleasure to be part of the R-NEET team conducting a study that has the potential to show the importance of how multiple and complex systems can have an immense impact on the mental health of young people who face incredible challenges.

Caradee Wright (PhD in Preventive and Social Medicine) is a Chief Specialist Scientist at the South African Medical Research Council leading the Climate and Health Research Programme. She is also an Adjunct Professor at the University of Pretoria and the University of Johannesburg. Her research is in environmental health epidemiology to understand climate change and air pollution impacts on human health and well-being to inform adaptation, interventions and policy development in Africa.

For the R-NEET project, Caradee is leading the environmental and health assessments, including measuring temperature in dwellings and blood pressure among participants, respectively.