UCT to confer honorary doctorate on Dr Bradshaw

Dear colleagues and students

As a way of honouring and celebrating excellence, the University of Cape Town (UCT) confers honorary doctorates on individuals who have had extraordinary achievements in their fields.

I am therefore pleased to announce that UCT will honour one of our own, Dr Debbie Bradshaw, at the September graduation ceremonies.

Honorary doctorates at UCT rank among the highest form through which the institution can show esteem to accomplished individuals. They recognise individuals who have made exceptional contributions to society, whether in academia, the arts, public service, or other fields of human endeavour.

These awards are significant not only for the individuals who receive them but also for UCT, as they embody the university’s values and mission of excellence, social justice, and global impact. Recipients are often leaders, visionaries, or pioneers who have achieved remarkable success or have had a transformative influence on their communities and beyond.

Dr Bradshaw, a globally recognised biostatistician and epidemiologist who is regarded as South Africa’s foremost expert in the field, is an individual worthy of this honour. Even in retirement, she remains research-active and has been honoured with the South African Medical Research Council’s (SAMRC) highest accolade, the President’s Award for Exceptional Contributions to Medical Research. Her scholarship is distinguished, with an h-index of 73 and over 22 000 citations, 10 000 of which have been in the past five years.

Dr Bradshaw completed her undergraduate and honours qualifications with distinction. She trained as a mathematical statistician at the then University of Natal (now the University of KwaZulu-Natal), earning a BSc in mathematics and mathematical statistics. She then pursued a BSc Honours in mathematical statistics at UCT, followed by an MSc in 1978. In 1980 she took study leave to further her education at the University of Oxford, where she completed a DPhil in biomathematics in 1983.

From 1978 to 1980, Dr Bradshaw worked as a research officer at SAMRC. After taking study leave from 1980 to 1982, she returned in 1983 as a biostatistician, eventually leading the Epidemiology and Biostatistics Division of SAMRC’s Centre for Epidemiological Research in Southern Africa in 1994. In 2000, she founded the SAMRC Burden of Disease Research Unit, which monitors health status and determinants in South Africa. She served as its director until her retirement in 2019.

Her dedication to training the next generation of epidemiologists and public health experts is evident through her supervision of numerous Master’s dissertations and PhD theses; and her informal mentoring of colleagues. She was vital in coordinating and leading the South African National Burden of Disease studies in 2000, 2006, and 2016, providing critical data to understand the country’s epidemiological transition and inform public health interventions.

Dr Bradshaw has actively contributed to numerous task teams and expert advisory groups. She has held honorary professorship in UCT’s School of Public Health and Family Medicine since 2015. She also helped establish a World Health Organization Family of International Classification (WHO-FIC) collaborating centre at SAMRC. She served on the Health Metrics Network Technical Advisory Group.

Throughout a career spanning nearly 50 years, Dr Bradshaw has tirelessly advocated for the marginalised and vulnerable, fearlessly speaking truth to power. Her expertise and public contributions to health policy debates in South Africa highlight her ability to collaborate with all stakeholders, including national and provincial governments, to promote evidence-based health policies that improves the lives of all South Africans.

This honour is fitting for someone of Dr Bradshaw’s calibre, an astute leader in her field.

On behalf of the UCT community, I convey our hearty congratulations to Dr Bradshaw!

Sincerely

Professor Mosa Moshabela
Vice-Chancellor

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