GS5 Regional Committee
A Regional Committee is established for each regional Gender Summit. For the Gender Summit 5 Africa 2015 the following Committee members are kindly contributing their expertise to the success of the event:
- Olive Shisana PhD, Chief Executive Officer, Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), South Africa (Chair)
- Immaculate Mogotsi, Joint Chief coordinator, Multi-disciplinary Research Centre, University of Namibia, Namibia
- Elizabeth Pollitzer PhD, Director, Portia Ltd, UK
- Wanda Ward PhD, Director, Office of International and Integrative Activities, National Science Foundation (NSF), USA
Professor Olive Shisana holds a Masters of Clinical Psychology from Loyola Colleage in Baltimore, Doctor of Science from Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg School of Public Health and is Chief Executive Officer of the HSRC, Honorary Professor at the University of Cape Town, former Professor of the Medunsa School of Public Health, founder of the University of the Western Cape Public Health Programme, first Director General of Health appointed under the former President Nelson Mandela’s administration. She is also the immediate past President of International Social Science Council (ISSC) and continues to serve on the Executive Committee of the ISSC. Prior to this she served as HSRC’s Executive Director of Social Aspects of HIV/AIDS and Health, previously Executive Director, Family and Community Health, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland.
Ms. Immaculate Mogotsi is a research fellow at the Multidisciplinary Research Centre at the University of Namibia, heading the Gender Training and Research Program since 2012. Before then she was a lecturer in the Faculty of Education in the Department of Lifelong Learning and Community Education. Ms. Mogotsi has been with the University of Namibia 10 years. She holds a Bachelor Degree in Social Work and Community Development from the University of Namibia and a Masters or Arts in Women and Development Studies from the International Institute of Social Studies in the Netherlands. She is currently pursuing her Doctoral Studies in the Netherlands at the ISS. Her main research interests are Gender and Women’s issues, but have always treated the discipline as cross cutting. Her current academic work in both teaching and research cover gender based violence, women’s empowerment, sexual and reproductive health and right. An interest that has rekindled in recent years in her work is the teaching of languages, Setswana and San, particular the teaching of Ju/hoansi in schools. Ms. Mogotsi has been instrumental in the introduction of Masters of Arts in Gender and Development, a programme that is hosted by the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in the Department of Sociology.
Elizabeth Pollitzer PhD is co-founder and Director of Portia, an organization devoted to improving gender equality in STEM and promoting the inclusion of the gender dimension in STEM. She has 20 years’ experience teaching and researching in the Departments of Computing and Management at Imperial College, University of London. Her original training was in Biophysics. She now applies this scientific background to her work as director of Portia. Elizabeth has over 15 years experience in the gender and STEM field, she is also an expert adviser on gender issues to the European Commission.Portia established in the Gender Summits in 2011 as part of the genSET project, under the leadership of its "Science Leaders Panel", many of whom still contribute their expertise to the evolution and ongoing success of the Gender Summits in their roles as speakers and Committee members.
During her tenure at the United States National Science Foundation (