Join the University of Iowa (UI) Iowa Global Health Network, an International Programs affinity group, for a lecture presented by Dr. Vanessa Govender. In partnership with the Iowa City Foreign Relations Council, this public lecture connects global experiences of worker health and occupational disease to challenges faced by communities in Iowa, emphasizing the links between health, justice, and community resilience.

Visit the International Programs website to view all of Dr. Govender’s lectures while she visits campus.

About Dr. Vanessa Govender:

Dr. Vanessa Govender, MBBCh, DOH, MPH (policy & management) is a South African specialist in occupational medicine with over 30 years of experience, including more than a decade in consulting, spanning public health, worker health systems, and occupational lung diseases. Her work bridges clinical practice, academia, policy, and advisory roles, with particular expertise in mining health, health risk communication, and the prevention of dust-related lung disease in exposed workers. A growing focus of her work is the responsible adoption of artificial intelligence in occupational healthcare systems.

Dr. Govender is the director of Masakhane Strategic Health Consulting (Pty) Ltd and serves in an advisory capacity to the Tshiamiso Trust, South Africa’s enhanced compensation system for former mineworkers affected by occupational lung disease. She is an honorary lecturer at the School of Public Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in Johannesburg, where she completed her medical degree and postgraduate training in public health, occupational health, and travel medicine. She has also completed executive education programs in leadership and strategy through Wits Business School, London Business School, and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.