Rachel Jewkes is Executive Scientist: Research Strategy in Office of the President and former Unit Director of the Gender and Health Unit of the South Africa Medical Research Council, based in Pretoria, South Africa. She also serves as Director of the What Works to Prevent Violence Global Programme, as well as of the Secretary of the Sexual Violence Research Initiative. She has been a member of the National Council Against Gender-Based Violence in South Africa and the PEPFAR Scientific Advisory Board and the WHO’s Strategic and Technical Advisory Committee for HIV-AIDS (STAC-HIV). Jewkes studied Medicine, receiving a Masters in Community Medicine (MSc) and a Doctorate in Medicine (MD) from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, University of London. She is an Honorary Professor in the faculty of Health Sciences, School of Public Health at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and is an A-rated researcher with the South African National Research Foundation. Jewkes moved from England to South Africa in 1994.
She has spent 20 years undertaking research into violence against women and girls and gender inequity and health, mainly in South Africa. She was the lead technical advisor to the UN Multi-Country Study on Men and Violence in Asia and the Pacific, is a member of the WHO Expert Advisory Panel on Injury and Violence Prevention and Control and the WHO Scientific and Technical Advisory Group on HIV.
She has authored over four hundred publications in peer-reviewed journals, book chapters and reports. She has worked closely with the South African Government over many years on sexual violence policy in the health sector. She is a founder member of the SVRI, was the Secretary for 15 years and is a member of the Leadership Council. From 2013-2020, she was the Consortium Director of the DFID-flagship What Works to Prevent Violence? Global Programme, which was conducted across 14 countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East to generate knowledge on prevention of violence against women and girls.