Ensa Johnson

Ensa Johnson is an augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) specialist and special needs educator. She completed her PhD studies at the Centre for Augmentative and Alternative Communication, University of Pretoria, South Africa, in 2015, where she focused on determining pain vocabulary that children aged 6–9 use to communicate their pain. This enabled speech-language pathologists to identify vocabulary for children with complex communication needs to use on their communication boards or speech-generating devices. Ensa received a MMEG grant in 2015 to financially support the completion of her PhD, as well as as well as a National Research Foundation (NRF) sabbatical grant.

Since completion of her doctoral studies, Ensa’s research has focused on children’s pain communication and pain assessment, in collaboration with Prof. Stefan Nilsson. Currently, Ensa is the South African primary investigator, with Prof. Nilsson as her Swedish counterpart, in a collaborative research project that resulted in the development of  the PicPecc app to help children undergoing cancer treatment.  This project has resulted in numerous publications.  

In addition to  her research in pain communication and assessment, Ensa is researching the implementation of AAC in various settings, including hospital intensive care units, schools, and courts. Ensa is rated by the NRF  as an established researcher (C2 rating). To date, she has published more than 30 articles in peer-reviewed journals as well as 3 chapters in scholarly books.

Ensa worked for 11 years at the Centre for AAC and has been employed since January 2022 as a lecturer at the University of South Africa’s Department of Inclusive Education. She has supervised two PhD students and co-supervised three PhD students to successful completion as well as supervising or cosupervising 15 MA students to completion. She is currently supervising two PhD students and 7 MA students.

Detailed information on Dr. Johnson’s work and publications: https://www.unisa.ac.za/sites/corporate/default/Colleges/Education/Schools,-departments,-centres-&-instututes/School-of-Educational-Studies/Department-of-Inclusive-Education/Staff-members/Dr-E-Johnson

Deirdre Smythe

Deirdre (Dee) Smythe, a barrister with an active law practice, is passionate about access to justice and has sterling expertise in many facets of family and criminal law. She began her career as a child protection officer and children’s rights advocate, and today is renowned internationally for her expertise on sexual aggression, advising schools, universities, and civil society on protecting women and children. Her work encompasses policies and processes for dealing with these complex matters. Dee is also a professor of law and has run research units at universities in South Africa.

Dee received her MMEG grant in 2004 when she was completing her PhD at Stanford University. She earned her BA and LLB at the University of Cape Town.

Sangeeta Chatterji

Sangeeta Chatterji’s research, practice, and teaching focus on helping women live safe, violence-free, and economically secure lives. Over the past 10 years, she has concentrated on understanding the dimensions and causes of gender-based violence (GBV) and identifying and testing interventions that can prevent it. She develops and validates novel methods to measure GBV and examines structural and economic inequalities that underlie gender inequality leading to GVB. She has extensive experience implementing GBV programs in the non-profit sector in India, as well as teaching and mentoring the next generation of social work practitioners and scholars.

Sangeeta Chatterji received her MMEG grant in 2017 while completing her PhD in social work at Rutgers University. She holds a master’s in social work from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, India and is currently a postdoctoral scholar at the University of San Diego.