Professor Nankie Ramabu is a public health expert specialising in Health and Community Studies, and an academic leader with over 22 years of experience spanning nutrition, academia, research, consultancy, and institutional leadership across Botswana and the wider region. She currently serves as Associate Professor and Acting Dean of the School of Public Health at Boitekanelo College, providing strategic academic leadership, driving research excellence, and overseeing programme development across the School's departments.
Professor Ramabu holds a PhD in Health and Community Studies from Leeds Beckett University, England, and a BSc (Hons) in Human Nutrition from London Metropolitan University. Her career began as a Nutrition Officer with Botswana's Ministry of Health, where she was part of a team that led and implemented the national Infant and Young Child Feeding Policy in the context of HIV/AIDS. She has since held senior roles including Monitoring, Evaluation and Research Consultant with ITECH Botswana, HIV Testing Technical Advisor to the Ministry of Health, and Monitoring & Evaluation Specialist at the Botswana Christian AIDS Intervention Program (BOCAIP), where she led teams securing programme funding and reviewing and developing organizational strategy.
A prolific scholar, Professor Ramabu has authored and co-authored twenty peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters on HIV prevention, child protection, gender-based violence, and voluntary medical male circumcision. She is co-editor of the Routledge volume Decolonising Research: Indigenous Methodologies in Sub-Saharan Africa, published in March 2026, contributing original chapters on Botho philosophy and the ontological significance of silence in African research ethics — work recognised as an innovative and deeply reflective contribution to decolonial methodology.
Within Boitekanelo College, she serves as Vice Chair of the Research Grants Sub-Committee, a member of the Institutional Review Board (IRB), and an Editor for the Boitekanelo Journal of Health, shaping the College's research governance, ethical oversight, and scholarly publishing agenda.
Her policy influence extends beyond academia: in 2024–2025, she delivered evidence-based policy briefs to bodies including the Ugandan Parliament's Women's Parliamentary Wing, and contributed to WHO and UNFPA strategic reviews of Botswana's reproductive, maternal, and adolescent health programmes. She serves as a journal reviewer for Child Abuse & Neglect and Developing World Bioethics, and is fluent in English, Setswana, and Sepedi, with intermediate Spanish.
