CASASP Members
Professor Michael Noble (Director)
Professor of Social Policy, Department of Social Policy and Social Work (DSPSW), University of Oxford. Director of the Centre for Analysis of South African Social Policy (CASASP) and Director of the Social Disadvantage Research Centre (SDRC) at the University of Oxford. He has worked as a social welfare lawyer in a community work/welfare rights project. He has been an advisor to the UK Government on small area indicators of poverty and deprivation. He is currently working with the South African Government's Department of Social Development (DSD) to develop the evidence base for pro-poor policy. His major research interests are in the areas of poverty and social exclusion and income maintenance policy.
Dr Robert van Niekerk (Deputy Director)
Research Fellow, DSPSW, University of Oxford and Deputy Director of CASASP. He is interested in the institutional history and understandings of health and welfare reform in South Africa. He is also interested in social policy in a post-apartheid South Africa, particularly anti-poverty polices and the factors which account for success and failure in policy implementation.
Dr Gemma Wright (Deputy Director)
Senior Research Fellow, DSPSW, University of Oxford and Deputy Director of CASASP. Her areas of interest include definitions and measurement of poverty and social exclusion, and small area level analysis of deprivation.
Helen Barnes
Research Fellow, DSPSW, University of Oxford. The focus of her work is currently on defining and measuring child poverty in South Africa. Other work she has been involved in includes the analysis of take-up of various social grants and the construction of indices of multiple deprivation.
David McLennan
Senior Research Fellow, DSPSW, University of Oxford.
Phakama Ntshongwana
Research Student and part time Research Officer, DSPSW, University of Oxford. Prior to joining CASASP, she worked for the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission and was a Transitional Justice Fellow attached to the University of Cape Town. Her areas of interest include indices of multiple deprivation, the take-up of social grants and work and welfare in South Africa.
Dr Rebecca Surender
University Lecturer in Social Policy, DSPSW, University of Oxford. She teaches on the MSc/M.Phil in Comparative Social Policy degree (with particular responsibility for teaching social policy, health policy and qualitative research methods) as well as on the undergraduate PPE course, and she supervises doctoral students. She was a founding member of CASASP. Her research interests have primarily been in the area of health policy and medical sociology. Recent CASASP research studies she has led include an assessment of the implementation of the child support grant, an analysis of recent poverty alleviation income generation projects, and a qualitative study on the attitudes of benefit recipients to employment, labour activation strategies and social grants.Dr Adam Whitworth
Research Officer, DSPSW, University of Oxford. His main interests relate to developing indices of multiple deprivation, spatial microsimulation, crime and research methodologies. His current work focuses on the creation of a new small area statistical geography for South Africa – datazones – and the production of the South African Index of Multiple Deprivation at this small area datazone level. A second project has looked at the feasibility of producing indices of multiple deprivation in other countries within the SADC region.
Kate Wilkinson
Research Fellow, DSPSW, University of Oxford. Her research interests include child poverty, small area measures of deprivation, microsimulation and social policy reform in South Africa.
David Avenell (Associate)
GIS consultant, with particular involvement in the creation of a new small area statistical geography - datazones - for South Africa.
Dr Lucie Cluver (Associate)
Departmental Lecturer in Evidence Based Social Intervention, DSPSW, University of Oxford. Her research interests focus on child well-being in South Africa, especially child poverty, and mental health and educational outcomes of orphans and vulnerable children.
Dr Chris Dibben (Associate)
Senior Research Associate, DSPSW, University of Oxford and Lecturer at the University of St Andrews. His areas of interest include health inequalities, spatial aspects of poverty and deprivation, and methodological aspects of poverty measurement.
Dr Martin Evans (Associate)
Senior Research Fellow, DSPSW, University of Oxford.
Richenda Gambles (Associate)
Departmental Lecturer in Social Policy, DSPSW, University of Oxford. She is involved in the social policy training courses.
Vincent Reina (Associate)
Senior Program Officer at the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), a U.S. based Community Development Financial Institution. His area of interest is in the financing and development of affordable housing. Prior to working at LISC, Vincent received an MSc in Comparative Social Policy from DSPSW, University of Oxford.