Scientific Committee for ICAMMHA 2025
Professor Vivette Glover
Professor Vivette Glover is Visiting Professor of Perinatal Psychobiology at Imperial College London. Her research has shown the effects of the emotional state of the mother during pregnancy, on the developing fetus and longer term on the child, especially on neurodevelopment. Her group have also studied the biological mechanisms that may underlie such fetal programming. More recently she has been involved in music interventions to reduce antenatal anxiety and depression, including in Africa. She has published over 450 papers. She is Treasurer of the Marcé Society, an advisor for the Early Intervention Foundation and a member of the Maternal Mental Health Alliance and the Global Alliance for Maternal Mental Health. She has been awarded the International Marcé Society medal, the John Cox medal, and the PIPUK award for Research into Pregnancy and Infant Mental Health. Her work is contributing to changes in government policy in the UK and elsewhere.

Professor Clara Haruzivishe
Professor Clara Haruzivishe is an Associate Professor of Nursing and Midwifery at the University of Zimbabwe’s Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences. Her research focuses on maternal and child health, with a particular emphasis on interprofessional education. She has extensive experience in midwifery and education, including leadership in both in-person and online teaching through Zoom and Moodle. Clara was an expert panelist on the HRSA-funded UCSF/AFREhealth STRIPE-HIV programme, contributing two of the 17 paper-based modules designed to strengthen HIV training for health professional students. She has served as Principal Investigator on multiple studies, including research on maternal morbidity and mortality, HIV partnerships, vaccine effectiveness, and UNICEF’s Children on the Move study. She also chairs the Interprofessional Education/Collaborative Practice Committee under the PETRA grant and has co-authored several papers on interprofessional education. Additionally, she is a co-investigator on a five-year NIH-funded ethics programme at the University of Zimbabwe

Dr. Naomi Dick Kaba
Dr Naomi Dick Kaba is a Doctor of Pharmacy and holds a Master’s in Public Health, with recognized expertise in gender and advocacy. She is the founder of Hakili Nafaya Institute, a research and advocacy organization working to mainstream mental health in Francophone Africa’s health systems, while placing a strong emphasis on women’s lived experiences.

Ms Shanon McNab
Ms Shanon McNab is the former Principal Technical Advisor with the MOMENTUM Country and Global Leadership program, where she co-led the Perinatal Mental Health (PMH) portfolio and served as Technical Lead on Respectful Maternal and Newborn Care. She led MOMENTUM’s 2022 landscape analysis “The Silent Burden: Understanding Perinatal Mental Disorders in Low- and Middle-Income Countries” and has supported global PMH work for the past three years. Previously, Shanon was Associate Director of the Averting Maternal Death and Disability (AMDD) program at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health for 10 years. Her work has focused on respectful maternity care, perinatal mental health, urban maternal and newborn health, and health workforce development. She has also worked in HIV prevention, family planning in crisis settings, and disaster response. With over 20 years of experience, Shanon has collaborated with universities, UN agencies, NGOs, and health departments. She holds dual master’s degrees from Columbia University and a BA from UC Berkeley.

Dr. Nicole Votruba
Dr. Nicole Votruba is a Senior Research Fellow in Implementation Science at the Nuffield Department of Women's & Reproductive Health, University of Oxford. She leads the PRAMH study, a community-based perinatal mental health intervention in rural India, in partnership with the George Institute India. She also leads the process evaluation of the SMARThealth Pregnancy programme and co-leads the multi-country Indigo Local study on community anti-stigma interventions. A psychologist and political scientist, she is a Junior Research Fellow at Wolfson College, Honorary Research Fellow at the George Institute for Global Health (UK), and Executive Secretary of Human Rights in Mental Health–FGIP. Nicole earned her PhD at King’s College London, developing the EVITA 2.0 framework for mental health science-policy engagement in LMICs. Her experience spans global mental health research and policy, including roles with the UK All-Party Parliamentary Group on Global Health and the FundaMentalSDG initiative. Her interests include women’s mental health, stigma, and human rights.

Dr Susan Pawlby
Dr. Susan Pawlby is a Developmental Clinical Psychologist with over 40 years’ experience in clinical and research work with mothers and babies. Until retiring in 2016, she was a Lecturer in Perinatal Psychiatry at King’s College London and a member of the Channi Kumar Mother and Baby Unit at the Bethlem Royal Hospital. She pioneered the use of video feedback to support mother-infant relationships in the context of severe maternal mental illness.
Susan co-led the South London Child Development Study, a 25-year longitudinal study examining the effects of maternal mental health on child development. She has published extensively and contributed expert advice to the NSPCC, the First 1001 Days movement, and the UK government's Start for Life campaign. Currently, she chairs the Brazelton Centre UK and is trained in the NBAS and NBO systems.
Deeply connected to Africa, Susan has lived, worked, or travelled in 22 African countries since volunteering in Rwanda

Dr Robert C. Stewart
Dr. Robert C. Stewart is a senior clinical research fellow at the University of Edinburgh and a practicing perinatal psychiatrist. He has spent 20 years working with colleagues in Malawi in the field of maternal mental health. He is an investigator on the Generation Malawi birth cohort study, co-edited the Malawi Maternal Mental Health Manual, and is convener of the African Alliance for Maternal Mental Health (AAMMH).

Ms Laura Fitzgerald
Ms Laura Fitzgerald is a certified nurse-midwife and global health practitioner with 20 years of technical and programmatic leadership in reproductive and maternal health, capacity development, health systems strengthening, and nursing and midwifery. Currently, as a Principle Technical Advisor with Jhpiego, an affiliate of Johns Hopkins University, she provides strategic and operational support to maternal health programs across Africa and southeast Asia.

Dr. Sarah Lloyd-Fox
Dr Sarah Lloyd-Fox completed a cross-disciplinary PhD in developmental neuroscience and medical physics at Birkbeck, University of London (2011). She has become an international expert in applying neuroimaging to infant development. Her research explores how family and environmental factors, ranging from poverty-related challenges to enriched multigenerational support, shape early brain and cognitive trajectories. She is currently a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow at the University of Cambridge, leading multi-disciplinary projects to: (i) develop community-friendly, globally tailored neuroimaging and behavioural toolkits; (ii) co-design family- and community-informed interventions bridging pre- and post-natal life; and (iii) create resources for families and schools to support early development.
Dr Lloyd-Fox is also committed to fostering positive research culture, serving as Academic Lead for Research Culture in Cambridge’s School of Biological Sciences. Internationally, she co-founded the African Brain and Cognitive Development Network (AfriBCD) with colleagues in South Africa, Nigeria, and Canada, and is a Trustee of the Brazelton Centre UK.

Dr Katie Rose Mahon Sanfilippo
Dr Katie Rose Mahon Sanfilippo is a Presidential Research Fellow at the School of Health and Medical Sciences, City St George’s, University of London. There she is part of the Centre for Health and Care Innovation Research and the Arts & Health lab lead. Overall, her research explores how music and the arts can support health and wellbeing, particularly for parents. Her current research focuses on scaling and sustaining community and arts-based health interventions, particularly in resource-constrained environments in the UK and globally. She has done extensive work in The Gambia with the CHIME project and is the co-founder of the Musical Care International Network and the Music for Parental Wellbeing Alliance.

International Conference on Maternal Mental Health in Africa
