Professor Helen Rees is Executive Director of the Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Institute, University of Witwatersrand and Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. She is an Honorary Professor at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, an honorary Fellow of Cambridge University’s Murray Edwards College, and an alumnus of Harvard Business School.
Rees chairs the South African Medical Control Council (MCC). She is a member of South Africa’s National Advisory Group on Immunization, the National Health Data Advisory and Coordination Committee chairing the TB/HIV committee, the National Department of Science and Technology panel reviewing South Africa’s science and technology and innovation institutional landscape, and the Scientific Advisory Committee of the National Institute of Communicable Diseases. Dr. Rees chairs the World Health Organization’s (WHO) African Advisory Group on Immunisation, International Health Regulation Emergency Committee on Polio, Committee on Ebola vaccines, and Expert Committee on maternal immunization. She is rapporteur on the WHO committee reviewing International Health Regulations.
Rees was made an Officer of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth for her contribution to global health. In 2015, she received the prestigious Oppenheimer award for Science and the National Science and Technology Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement award for science.
