South African Ethicist to Speak Nov. 1

A research ethics specialist from South Africa, Nhlanhla Mkhize, Ph.D., will present the first of a series of Distinguished Lectures hosted by The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. He will speak at noon Monday, Nov. 1, in the fifth floor gallery of the Medical School Building.

Mkhize lectures in psychology and recently has been appointed to the Research Ethics Committee of the Nelson Mandela School of Medicine at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. He will discuss “Indigenous Concepts of Personhood, Health and Illness: Implications for IRBs.”

IRBs are institutional review boards that are charged with monitoring human subject research. At the UT Health Science Center at Houston, the Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects serves as the IRB.

Mkhize is co-director of the Southern African Research Ethics Training Initiative, a collaborative multidisciplinary program between the University of KwaZulu-Natal and the University of Pretoria. As a consultant to the HIV-AIDS Vaccines Ethics Group, he has co-chaired and facilitated workshops and symposia on the ethics of health-related research.

He received his undergraduate and doctoral degrees from the University of Natal and received his master’s degree from the University of Iowa while studying in the United States on a Fulbright Scholarship.

The event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact the Office of Research Support Committees, Paula.L.Knudson@uth.tmc.edu or (713) 500-5856.