Andrea Rother

Andrea Rother is the Head of the Environmental Health Division and Associate Professor in the School of Public Health and Family Medicine at UCT. She is also deputy director of the Centre for Environmental and Occupational Health Research (CEOHR) in the School.

As an environmental sociologist and environmental/public health professional her expertise are in the areas of chemical/pesticide risk management, risk communication, health literacy, exposure assessment, intervention development and policy analysis. Andrea is extensively involved in national and international policy development around reducing chemical and pesticide health and environmental health risks, an area she has been working in for over 25 years. She is currently leading the development of a FAO guidance document on Highly Hazardous Pesticides.

Andrea also has wide-ranging experience in facilitation and capacity building, particularly in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region. She also convenes a post graduate diploma in pesticide risk management which has a large e-learning component for building the capacity of professionals in Low and Middle Income Countries. Andrea also facilitates an e-networking forum and bi-monthly virtual seminar with regulators, students, and international experts particular in new and complex areas (e.g., regulating pesticides taking climate change into account, regulating nanoparticles, regulating endocrine disrupting chemicals).

Her current climate change projects and PhD student research are on the impact of climate change on heat stress for herbicide sprayers removing alien invasive vegetation, and assessing the factors influencing negative impacts from climate change and exposures to endocrine disrupting pesticides.