Professor Verusia Chetty is fighting discrimination of a special kind. Chetty wants to end the marginalization of South Africans living with disabilities and dreams of a nation where every citizen will be integrated. She believes that there is a big role for communities to play in ensuring that all people are treated equally, irrespective of their disability.
Chetty completed her Ph.D. in Health Sciences in HIV care and anthropology and succeeded in finding balance among the pressures of being a mother, an active member of the community and a scientist.
She graduated in 2016 with five high impact peer-reviewed ar¬ticles emanating from her doctoral study, and this was indicative of Chetty’s ethic and fervor to be an exceptional research scientist.
She is an Associate Professor and the Academic Leader of Teaching and Learning in the School of Health Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal. Chetty is a fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.
With a National Research Foundation Y-rating, Chetty has authored 27 peer-reviewed publications, including papers in leading international journals such as The Lancet and AIDS Care.
A frequent speaker at inter¬national forums, scientific chair and a member of International societies, Chetty also received national scientific awards and grants such as the Emerging Public Health Practitioner Award from the Health Systems Trust in 2015 and was one of the first 13 recipients of the National Health Scholars programme.
Chetty is currently concluding a scholarship on the Fogarty International Center of the National Institutes of Health that supports high-quality scientists skilled to lead socially valuable, locally relevant and culturally sensitive research programmes.
Chetty has successfully mentored over 60 honours’ students, 13 masters’ students, and a Ph.D. student to completion. She is currently supervising six PhDs and eight masters students with a postdoctoral student awarded a competitive scholarship in UKZN under her research profile. Chetty is a health professional re¬search scientist, registered with the Health Professionals Council of SA and an invited convenor of the Young Scientist Programme for the SA Medical and Research Council for the last three years.
