Olive Shisana: change through science

Abstract

It is not often that one finds a woman with such commitment to research-based policy-making. As a black female scientist, Olive Shisana has made substantial contributions to healthcare research and practice in South Africa within a system that remains male-dominated. Shisana was 17 when she and her family were forcibly removed from their ancestral land at Makotopong, outside Pietersburg (Polokwane). At the time she and her husband, William Shisana, a wellknown industrial psychologist and former lecturer, were forced to leave the country as a young couple.