Prof. Francesc Xavier Gómez-Olivé

Gómez-Olivé is a Medical Doctor, specialist in Public Health and Preventive Medicine. He is an Associate Professor at the School of Public Health, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa and the Associate Director of the MRC/Wits Rural Public Health and Health Transition Research Unit. He holds a PhD in Public Health from the University of the Witwatersrand and a Master’s Degree in Communicable Diseases, Epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. In his present position as the Head of Research Office, Gómez-Olivé is responsible for the scientific and administrative coordination and implementation of the research projects run in the Unit. Moreover, he coordinates teaching activities, research capacity and career development for undergraduates, Masters, PhD and post-doctoral students to ensure that they have the necessary environment to develop their studies and their research careers and that they are correctly embedded within existing research activities. He has supervised different Masters, PhD and post- doctoral students to completion. Gómez-Olivé has 25 years of experience in rural Africa where he has worked as Clinician and Project Manager in Rwanda, and an Epidemiologist and Research Manager in research centers in Mozambique and South Africa. During these years, he has been the Principal Investigator (PI), co-PI and co-Investigator of numerous studies. He has authored more than 250 publications and his areas of research interest include health systems research to facilitate the use of data by the health systems that collect them in benefit of their patients; the prevention and treatment of HIV in adolescents; and the health and wellbeing of adults and older population especially in areas of sleep disorders, multimorbidity, non-communicable diseases, disability and frailty, HIV, COVID-19, migration and health.