Rate My Professor Nicole de Wet-Billings

Professor Nicole de Wet-Billings is Senior Director: Academic Affairs at the University of the Witwatersrand. She holds a BA (2007), BA Hons (2008), MA (2009) and PhD (2013) from the University of the Witwatersrand. Her MA dissertation examined domestic violence and child health outcomes in Zimbabwe, while her doctoral thesis analysed levels, causes and determinants of adolescent mortality in South Africa from 2001 to 2007. She previously served as Head of the Department of Demography and Population Studies, Assistant Dean for Research and for Postgraduate Studies in the Faculty of Humanities, and Acting Head of the School of Social Sciences.

Her research focuses on demography and population studies, with particular emphasis on adolescent health, youth development and transitions to adulthood in South Africa. She has authored more than 65 journal publications, supervised over 30 master’s students and two doctoral candidates, and contributed as an invited commissioner to the Lancet Commission on Adolescent Health. Among her honours are the DST Women in Science 2016 first runner-up award in the Young Distinguished Women in Humanities and Social Sciences category, selection as one of the Mail & Guardian’s Top 200 Young South Africans in 2018, and participation in the Female Academic Leadership Fellow programme and the Consortium for Advanced Research and Training in Africa. She has received research grants from the DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence in Human Development, the National Research Foundation, the British Academy and the Mellon Mays Foundation, and has served on editorial boards of several journals.