STRIVE Tackling the structural drivers of HIV

Charlotte Watts has conducted research on HIV since the 1990s. She combines a focus on women’s vulnerability to HIV and violence with innovation in mathematical modelling to project epidemiological and other outcomes. At the LSHTM, Watts holds the Sigrid Rausing Chair in Gender, Violence and Health.

Originally trained as a mathematician to PhD level, Watts went on to study epidemiology, economics and public health. She brings a multi-disciplinary perspective to action-oriented research to inform change. Her numerous senior research and advisory positions include roles within:

• the WHO Multi-country Study on Women’s Health and Domestic Violence;
• the Global Burden of Disease Working Group, as Chair;
• WHO and UNAIDS expert consultations on HIV, violence against women, HIV resource projections and microbicides;
• World Bank, advisor on economic interventions to address HIV/AIDS;
• WHO’s Gender Violence and Health Centre; and
• the UK Consortium on AIDS and International Development.

Watts is the founding Director of the Social and Mathematical Epidemiology Group in the Department of Global Health and Development.

Read Charlotte Watts: from pure maths to HIV and gender-based violence; a profile featured in The Lancet.

Photo credit: Anne Koerber, LSHTM