Inaugural Lecture: Professor Maryam Shahmanesh

Professor Maryam Shahmanesh presents 'Revolution, Sex and Biosocial care: From a feminist’s voyage across Iran, Burma and Goa, to strengthening HIV resilience among adolescents and youth in South Africa.'

During this inaugural lecture, Maryam will take you on a winding journey from her escape from Iran to UK to her final destination of co-developing and evaluating biosocial interventions, underpinned by principals of health and social justice. She will illustrate this through her journey to develop and evaluate Thetha Nami ngithethe nawe (Let’s Talk) for adolescents and young people in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Thetha Nami ngithethe nawe is a Peer-Led Biosocial intervention, that delivers innovations in biomedical diagnosis, treatment and prevention of HIV and sexually transmitted infections through integration with sexual health and social care.

She will describe her journey, from her formative experiences in peri-revolutionary Iran to her intellectual awakening to structural drivers in Cambridge and the development of her passion for infectious diseases in Zimbabwe and El Salvador. She will take a detour through her time in Yale, then as a project co-ordinator for Medicines Sans Frontières in Myanmar, and finally her PhD in Goa, India - where she fell in love with HIV, and understood the critical role structural drivers - poor human rights and criminalisation of groups of people such as sex workers and injection drug users, failed health systems, poverty, and stigma – play in driving the HIV epidemic.

In Goa she showed how structural violence worsened the HIV risk environment for sex workers and in Burma she set up her first accessible sexual health and sexually transmitted infection clinic, in the Jade Mine area, named after a small white flower (Thazin) to reach criminalised and marginalised sex workers and mobile men. Themes that resurface and inform her work in South Africa.

Along the way, she will introduce you to her family, friends, mentors, and mentees. Amazing women and men who have cultivated her intellectual curiosity, rigorous science, and commitment to social and economic justice and feminism. She will share her failures and celebrate success, especially amongst the amazing bright young women she mentors.

The lecture will run from 17:00-18:00, followed with a drinks reception from 18:00-19:00 in the Roberts Foyer. This event is open to the public, as well as UCL staff and students.

Maryam Shahmanesh is a Professor of Global Health at University College London, Director of Implementation Science at the Africa Health Research Institute in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, and honorary consultant at the Mortimer Market Centre. She has a NIHR Global Research Professorship to establish a centre of excellence for co-creating and evaluating complex community-based interventions for infectious diseases. After graduating in Medicine (Cambridge University), she completed her specialist training in Sexual health and HIV medicine (London). Her academic training alongside her clinical training, included a degree in Social and Political Science (Cambridge University), a Masters in Epidemiology (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine), and a PhD in Clinical Epidemiology (University College London). During her training, she spent two years with Medicines Sans Frontières in the Kachin State, Myanmar.

Maryam’s key strength is to work in the interdisciplinary space between social science, clinical science, and epidemiology. She uses this to lead a large programme of research around effective biosocial interventions that improve HIV resilience and sexual well-being amongst adolescents and young adults in South Africa. Teaching and mentoring the next generation of researchers is crucial to Maryam. She has designed three post graduate programmes (MSc) programmes at UCL: the Masters in Sexually Transmitted Infection and HIV (2010); Population Health (2016); and Applied Infectious Disease Epidemiology (2019), supervises PhD students and is a mentor to a large team of South African researchers.

Feminism is integral to Maryam’s science; she has been blessed with strong female role models, most important of all her mother Jaleh. Maryam’s intellectual curiosity and commitment to social justice is continually cultivated by her father, Mohsen, and her love of art by her sister, Nargess. Swimming in the sea, delicious food and wine, and music bring Maryam pleasure and so she is lucky to have found a life partner in Bawmra the creator of the award-winning restaurant in Goa, Bomras (Conde Naste 2023). Maryam’s greatest joy and pride are her three beautiful, resilient, funny, and clever children, Michka, Mylu and Manu; her infinite love for them, like the universe, is ever-expanding.

Visit Professor Maryam Shahmanesh's UCL Profile

Event Venue

Sir Ambrose Fleming Lecture Theatre (G06 ), Ground Floor, Roberts Building, UCL, Malet Street, London, United Kingdom