Angela Kelly-Hanku

Angela is social and public health researcher with training in anthropology and sociology. As a long-term resident of Papua New Guinea Angela has conducted significant social research into several infectious disease as well as experiences of and factors associated with poor sexual, reproductive, and maternal health outcomes. Angela holds joint positions at the Kirby Institute for Infection and Immunity in Society, UNSW Sydney and the PNG Institute of Medical Research.

Angela heads a large team of interdisciplinary researchers in Papua New Guinea and Australia who work on PNG-related projects in sexual health, reproductive health, HIV, violence, gender and sexuality, and Tuberculosis. At present she is involved in two qualitative studies on TB.

As new novel diagnostic technologies have become available, changing the diagnostic landscape in low- and middle-income countries, Angela has both implemented bio-behavioural research using POC technologies as well as examined and evaluated their use in local settings from a diverse range of perspectives, both in PNG and Myanmar.

For more than 25 years Angela has been engaged in the response to HIV as an activist, development practitioner, and researcher. Building on her passion and commitment to HIV she hopes to continue fostering the involvement of social research in the response to TB and contribute to a more nuanced, locally driven, response to the epidemic, and one that places people and their communities at the centre.