Rate My Professor Matthew Chersich

Professor Matthew Chersich is a Research Professor and Executive Director of the Wits Planetary Health Research Division at the University of the Witwatersrand. He is a medical doctor who completed his MB BCh at the University of the Witwatersrand in 1998. He holds an MSc in Public Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and a PhD from Ghent University in Belgium. He serves as a Visiting Professor at the University of Ghent and as a Research Fellow in Public Health and Primary Care at Trinity College Dublin.

Chersich has more than 20 years of experience in public health research across Africa, including previous roles at the Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Institute, the Centre for Health Policy, and the Perinatal HIV Research Unit. His research focuses on the impacts of climate change on health, with particular emphasis on maternal and newborn health, heat exposure, adaptation interventions, and related data science initiatives. He leads the NIH HE²AT Center on data science and climate change and has contributed to Wellcome Trust and EU-funded projects in this area. He was a contributing author to the Africa chapter of the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and has contributed to 14 WHO guidelines. He delivered his inaugural lecture at Wits on climate change and maternal health in Africa. Chersich has authored approximately 200 publications with an H-index of 53.