Catherine Wedderburn (pictured) has been awarded the Johnstone & Florence Stoney Studentship (£4500) from the British Federation of Women Graduates for her research on the ‘Neurodevelopmental effects of HIV and ART exposure: a prospective neuroimaging study of uninfected children born to HIV-infected mothers’. Her research is a sub-study of the Drakenstein Child Health Study, a population-based birth cohort study in Paarl, Western Cape, South Africa investigating the early life determinants of child health. Her PhD involves magnetic resonance imaging of children aged 2-3 years and measuring their clinical neurodevelopment. Her PhD is funded by a Wellcome Trust Research Training Fellowship through the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and University of Cape Town, and focuses on understanding the effects of in utero exposure to HIV and antiretroviral treatment in order to improve global child health. 

Catherine is a Clinical Research Fellow with an interest in Paediatrics, HIV and Neuroscience. She studied medicine at the University of Cambridge during which she undertook a BA degree in Neuroscience, before completing her medical training at the University of Edinburgh. She has since spent time working clinically in the UK where she obtained her membership of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, and South Africa at the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital. She completed a Masters in Tropical Medicine and International Health and a Diploma in Tropical Medicine & Hygiene at LSHTM. More recently she has worked with the World Health Organisation in Geneva and then Médecins Sans Frontières in Khayelitsha, Western Cape on the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV.