Tonya R. Thurman, MPH, PhD

Tonya R. Thurman,'s MPH, PhD, research focuses on establishing an evidence-base for programs serving highly vulnerable children in sub-Saharan Africa. She resides in South Africa as Country Director for the Tulane International office while directing evaluation and intervention development initiatives to guide USAID Southern Africa’s investment in programs for orphans and other vulnerable children and youth. Her projects entail rigorous evaluations, monitoring activities, capacity building, and diverse dissemination strategies to ensure that learning improves service delivery. Current activities in South Africa include a longitudinal examination of risk patterns among adolescents living with HIV enrolled in comprehensive support programming, testing of innovative structured interventions designed to boost adolescent HIV prevention through parenting support, and the development of synergistic technology-enhanced program monitoring systems for tracking service delivery and outcomes among more than a million PEPFAR beneficiaries. Within multiple countries in sub-Saharan Africa, she has also led randomized control trials and quasi–experimental studies investigating the impact of HIV prevention and psychosocial support programs on the wellbeing of HIV affected children and caregivers. Working closely with local and national stakeholders, results from Dr. Thurman’s research have been used to improve policy and programming for vulnerable children and families within communities highly affected by HIV.