Rate My Professor Meryl Jagarnath

Dr Meryl Jagarnath is an nGAP Lecturer in the Division of Environmental Health at the School of Public Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town. She holds a PhD in Environmental Sciences from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, awarded in 2019. With a background in both physical and human geography, her research focuses on the interactions and impacts between people and the environment. Her doctoral thesis examined urban climate and heat stress in Durban, identifying vulnerable populations most at risk from climate change based on physical exposure, socio-demographic profiles, and livelihoods. She has published several journal articles from this work and makes extensive use of spatial tools such as Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Remote Sensing (RS) to analyse links between people and the environment at local to global scales. Prior to her appointment at UCT in 2021, Dr Jagarnath completed two years of postdoctoral research at the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom as part of the BRECCIA project on building research capacity for sustainable food and water security in sub-Saharan Africa, investigating climate vulnerability and food and water insecurity in dryland communities through extensive fieldwork in rural areas. Her current research addresses air quality risk mapping, environmental justice, and pesticides in the Global South, including a 2026 study published in GeoHealth that found more than 40% of Cape Town’s population living in high- to very-high-risk air pollution areas, concentrated in informal settlements and historically disadvantaged neighbourhoods. She also contributed to a 2026 scoping review on environmental justice and pesticides published in Current Environmental Health Reports.

Dr Jagarnath serves as convener of the Pesticide Risk Management programme and participates in teaching and research activities within the Division of Environmental Health. Her work contributes to advancing understanding of environmental health risks in urban African contexts and supports capacity building in low- and middle-income countries.