Dr. Amy Wise

Amy Wise is a South Africa–based maternal and child health researcher affiliated with leading academic and clinical research networks in Johannesburg, including collaborations linked to the University of the Witwatersrand and the CHAMPS programme. Her work integrates epidemiology, clinical research, and public health to address major drivers of maternal, neonatal, and child morbidity and mortality in low-resource settings.

Her research focuses on climate-related health risks in pregnancy, particularly heat exposure and its biological pathways to preterm birth and adverse neonatal outcomes. She also contributes to large cohort platforms on maternal HIV, anaemia in pregnancy, and high-risk obstetrics, advancing understanding of inflammatory, metabolic, and health system mechanisms shaping outcomes for women and infants.

Wise has played a key role in post-mortem surveillance studies through CHAMPS, strengthening cause-of-death attribution using minimally invasive tissue sampling. Her publications on pneumonia, diagnostic inaccuracies, healthcare delays, antimicrobial resistance, and transplant pregnancy highlight a commitment to improving clinical care, surveillance systems, and policy-relevant evidence across sub-Saharan Africa.