Charlotte Watts

Charlotte Watts is founding director of the Gender Violence and Health Centre at LSHTM. An internationally renowned expert on Violence Against Women, and on Gender and HIV, she has more than fifteen years experience in HIV and violence research.

Originally trained as a mathematician, with further training in epidemiology and public health, Charlotte brings a unique, multi-disciplinary perspective to the complex challenge of addressing women’s vulnerability to violence and to HIV, with a strong commitment to drawing upon the multi-disciplinary expertise of GVHC to conduct rigorous, action-oriented research to inform change.

Charlotte has held several senior research and advisory positions, including acting as a Core Research Team member for the WHO Multi-Country Study on Women’s Health and Domestic Violence (1997-present); Chair of the Expert Working Group to Asess the Global Burden of Inter-personal Violence (2009-10); Advisor to the UK Prevalence Study Study of the Mistreatment and Abuse of Older People (2005-9); and Chair of the Public Health Benefits Working Group of the Rockefeller Foundation Microbicide Initiative (2000-2002). She has served on several WHO Expert Consultations on HIV, violence against women, and on microbicides, and was Track C co-chair of the Microbicides 2006 conference.

She regularly gives presentations at national and international meetings, and at LSHTM teaches PhD and MSc students.