Early Career Researchers

Dr Manisha Yapa graduated with a PhD from the Kirby Institute UNSW Sydney in 2021, is an honorary research affiliate at the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research and postdoctoral fellow at the University of Sydney Central Clinical School. She is an infectious diseases physician with a research interest in global health and health systems strengthening, and currently works on pragmatic clinical trials aimed at reducing drug-resistant tuberculosis in Vietnam. Her PhD examined the impact and implementation of service quality interventions targeting the HIV cascade of care in rural South Africa. Prior to that, she led a stepped-wedge trial aimed at improving antenatal HIV care quality at primary care clinics in rural South Africa (Yapa et al, PLoS Med 2020). The work was based at the Wellcome Trust-funded Africa Health Research Institute (AHRI) population surveillance/ intervention site in Mtubatuba, KwaZulu-Natal.

Dr Yapa co-leads a WHO-commissioned process evaluation of HIV care interventions which were delivered as part of a major interventional research collaboration between the Kirby Institute and academic institutions in four Indonesian cities. Dr Yapa also has experience as a clinical trials physician (Chelsea & Westminster Hospital London, in Phase III and IV HIV and Hepatitis C trials).