Professor Kathryn Chu has been elected as a member of the Board of Directors of the Consortium of Universities for Global Health (CUGH) from 2021 to 2024.
Chu is currently the inaugural director of the Centre for Global Surgery at Stellenbosch University's Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences.
Her career has been long and distinguished.
Chu's initial training was as a general and colorectal surgeon. She did her undergraduate degree at Stanford University, and completed her medical degree at the University of California. She received a Master's degree in Public Health and Developing Countries from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and is currently the Vice-President of the Board of Médecins Sans Frontières-Southern Africa. She has spent more than four years doing humanitarian work, and previously worked for the Harvard Medical School in Rwanda training surgeons under the Human Resources for Health Programme.
CUGH is based in Washington, DC, and is an organisation of over 179 academic institutions and other organisations from around the world engaged in addressing global health challenges. CUGH was established in 2008 with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and The Rockefeller Foundation.
Its mission is to support academic institutions and partners to improve the wellbeing of people and the planet through education, research, service, and advocacy. CUGH works to strengthen the abilities of its members to communicate and disseminate information to the public and policymakers.
Board members are expected to have strong leadership qualities, with demonstrated success in building a global health department or programme, or have a strong leadership role in collaborating with his/her home institute's global health department or programme. They are expected to contribute to the shaping, approving, monitoring, and implementation of the organisation's activities.
"Being on the Board of Directors means that I contribute to the governance, mission, and strategy of this organisation," says Prof Chu.
"On a personal level I feel it is a great honour to be selected as a CUGH board member. I am also happy to be in a position to promote global health, which is my passion and academic interest.
"I would like to promote leadership from universities in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) within the organisation. In addition, I would like to promote CUGH to global health programmes at universities in LMIC, as currently the organisation is dominated by universities from high-income countries (HIC). Global health is meant to be about equity between LMIC and HIC relationships and I would like the organisation to better represent the content it promotes."
There can only be one representative from any particular institution on the board at any given time. Chu is not the first faculty member from Stellenbosch University to serve on the board, or indeed on the subcommittees of CUGH. Recently, another faculty member from SU, Prof René English was elected as a member of the Subcommittee on Masters and Undergraduate Degrees in Global Health (SMUDGH) of the CUGH.
"Stellenbosch University also has a long relationship with CUGH through the FMHS Dean Prof Jimmy Volmink and Prof Hester Klopper, who has just finished her term on the board. Continuing to have an SU faculty member on the board will solidify our leadership position within this organisation. So I think my role will be to continue to represent the university, South Africa, and the African continent, especially with regard to issues around decolonising global health," says Chu.
Photo credit: Stefan Els
