The Collaborative Team

Dr Lindsey Reynolds is a critically engaged public health and social science researcher with over twenty years of experience working in and on the South African health system and in global health research. Her work focuses on the social contexts, power dynamics, and ethical challenges shaping health and development initiatives, and on designing and facilitating multi-stakeholder processes that bring together diverse forms of expertise to translate evidence into strategy for policy and implementation.

Lindsey founded Pivot Collective in 2018 and has since led the development of both its non-profit and consulting arms. She currently serves as Managing Director of Pivot Collective Consulting and as a member of the Board of Directors of Pivot Collective NPC.

At Pivot, Lindsey leads strategic learning and systems change partnerships with funders, research institutions, and grassroots actors across the Global South and North. She designs and facilitates collaborative learning and strategy processes that connect community knowledge, research evidence, and institutional decision-making. She has served as team lead and principal advisor on multi-year initiatives with partners including the Wellcome Trust, Agence Française de Développement (AFD), and Population Services International, supporting organisations to synthesise diverse forms of evidence and translate learning into programme design, policy strategy, and institutional reform. Her work often involves facilitating dialogue between government actors, technical experts, funders, and community leaders to align evidence, strategy, and implementation priorities.

Prior to founding Pivot, Lindsey held academic appointments at Brown University, Stellenbosch University, and the University of Cape Town. She holds a joint PhD in Anthropology and Public Health from Johns Hopkins University, where her dissertation examined constructions of vulnerability among children in South Africa.

She has led qualitative and interdisciplinary research examining the social and ethical dimensions of global health research and practice, including work on community engagement, representation, and participation in large-scale health interventions. Her research explores how concepts such as "community," "vulnerability," and "population" shape scientific knowledge, institutional practice, and the lived realities of people participating in health programmes and clinical trials. She has also led collaborative research initiatives focused on the positionalities and experiences of emerging African scholars in global health, contributing to the emergence of critically engaged global health studies. She has published extensively on topics such as HIV treatment dynamics, stigma and exclusion in healthcare access, and the ethics of community engagement in global health.

Alongside this work, she has convened international workshops and expert consultations bringing together researchers, policymakers, and practitioners to synthesise evidence and inform research and policy agendas. She has mentored and supported early-career African researchers and postgraduate students, and co-designed postgraduate curricula focused on global health ethics, transdisciplinary research, and epistemic justice.

Across her work, Lindsey prioritises collaborative approaches that bridge research, practice, and policy in ways that centre community knowledge and ethical accountability.

Angelique Thomas is a Senior Researcher and Programme Lead at Pivot Collective. A social scientist and story-crafter, her work explores lived experience and the ethical dimensions of knowledge production across mental health and global health. She is particularly interested in how everyday realities, stigma, and structural inequalities shape both people's lives and the systems designed to understand them. Driven by curiosity about the whys, hows, and so whats of people's everyday realities, she works through narrative storytelling, ethnography, and participatory, trauma-informed approaches that centre relationality, context, and experiential knowledge. Her approach treats lived experience not just as data, but as a genuine source of knowledge, accountability, and social change.

At the heart of her current work is a question she returns to often: what does it mean to do research ethically, and with whom? She currently co-leads Our Lived Experience in Navigating Science (LENS) Matters, a Wellcome Trust-commissioned initiative exploring how mental health researchers with lived experience navigate research environments in South Africa. Bringing together researchers, lived experience leaders, and institutional partners, the project examines questions of disclosure, identity, emotional labour, and research culture, working toward research infrastructures that are more honest, more humane, and more accountable to the people at their centre. This focus on research culture and engaged practice runs across her broader work at Pivot Collective, where she has contributed to Wellcome Trust initiatives on engaged research and knowledge exchange, and led qualitative research and implementation work on HIV prevention programmes with men who have sex with men.

Her path to this work was built through years of close, sustained engagement with communities that research too often speaks about rather than with. At the Centre for Social Science Research at the University of Cape Town, she led longitudinal research with adolescent girls and young women living with HIV, developing youth-centred tools that translated complex biomedical concepts into resources young people could actually use. Before that, she spent four years embedded in the HPTN 071 (PopART) trial at the Desmond Tutu TB Centre at Stellenbosch University, one of the largest HIV combination prevention trials in sub-Saharan Africa, working directly with transgender women, cisgender female sex workers, young people, migrants, and people living with disabilities across South Africa and Zambia. That grounding in community-level realities, in the gap between what health systems promise and what people actually experience, is what continues to shape how she approaches every project she takes on. She holds an MA in Political Studies from the University of the Western Cape, with advanced training at the International Institute for Social Studies in The Hague, the University of Amsterdam's Summer Institute on Sexuality, Culture and Society, and the Comitas Institute for Anthropological Research.

Elethu Nkala is an activist researcher and social impact designer based in Cape Town, South Africa, with a strong focus on health and food security advocacy. Passionate about creating lasting change, Elethu integrates co-creation and arts-based research into his work to promote communal impact. He has extensive experience in project implementation, management, and supporting youth-led initiatives that drive social justice. Elethu first began working with Pivot Collective NPC as a peer facilitator in the Young and Curious project (2019–2021), before joining the organisation as a Social Impact Designer in 2022. In this role, he has contributed to diverse projects, including facilitating youth engagement workshops, conducting evaluations on the intersections of climate change and health, and co-designing participatory learning processes. He also serves as Secretary of the Board of Directors of Pivot Collective NPC, contributing to the organisation's governance and accountability.

Elethu's professional journey includes roles such as Lead Facilitator at Heroes Academy, Co-Director of New Life Institute, and Interim Committee Member of the Gugulethu Urban Food Forest Initiative. Through these positions, he has demonstrated expertise in strategic planning, programme design, community engagement, and fostering sustainability in social justice initiatives. He has also served as a Trustee for the Etafeni Day Care Centre Trust. These experiences highlight his commitment to empowering communities and fostering autonomy. These experiences highlight his commitment to empowering communities and fostering autonomy.

Elethu's dedication to social impact has earned him recognition as a DGMT Innovation Fellow (2023) and recipient of the CDKN Climate Justice Award (2023). He holds a Higher Certificate in Radio Production from SEDA and has pursued studies in Political Science at the University of Cape Town. His work reflects a deep commitment to translating research into actionable solutions that address pressing social challenges while ensuring long-term sustainability.

Siphokazi Orcillia Tau is a South African researcher specializing in African feminisms, women's leadership in higher education, and the intersections of gender and power. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Education at the University of Johannesburg and holds a Master's degree in Political Science from Nelson Mandela University, where her research focused on African women's leadership read through an African feminist lens. Her career spans roles in research, teaching, and programme coordination, with a strong emphasis on African feminist scholarship and higher education transformation. At Pivot Collective, she serves as Knowledge Manager and Programme Coordinator for the Wellcome Trust Centres for Exchange Phase 2 project, and as Treasurer of the Board of Pivot Collective NPC.

She has worked as a Research Coordinator for the Encyclopaedia of African Feminism, an NIHSS funded project, based at the University of Johannesburg, as well as a Research Assistant at the Centre for Researching Education & Labour at the University of the Witwatersrand. She is former programmes coordinator for the Centre for Women and Gender Studies at the Nelson Mandela University. She has also taught at Nelson Mandela University, Rosebank College, and Ijeruka.

She has also worked with Pivot Collective on HIV interventions for marginalized groups, her contributions to course design include developing modules on gender inclusivity and decolonial pedagogies to teaching. Siphokazi's publications explore themes such as African women's leadership, feminist expression, and institutional cultures in post-colonial universities.

Siphokazi is an active participant in academic conferences and engagements, including panels on African feminisms and leadership transformation. She has received recognition for her work through grants like the Goethe-Institut Project Space (GPS) grant for a heritage-focused initiative, Imbali yakwa Tyefu and is a current Canon Collins scholar, for her PhD studies. Her dedication to advancing African feminist thought and fostering inclusive academic spaces reflects her commitment to social justice and transformative education practices.

Clémence Petit-Perrot is a seasoned practitioner in communications for social change and development with 15 years of experience in programme and campaign design, management, facilitation, and evaluation. Her work spans collaborative media and research initiatives across the Global South, focusing on health, social, and environmental justice. Passionate about storytelling, she leverages media to amplify marginalised voices, foster narrative change, and shift power dynamics locally and globally. Clémence has extensive expertise in interdisciplinary knowledge sharing, co-design, and organisational development, having designed strategic plans, theories of change, and evaluation frameworks for diverse organisations working toward rights-centred impact.

Currently serving as Strategy And Learning Lead at Pivot Collective Consulting, Clémence co-leads global initiatives such as the Wellcome Trust Centres for Exchange project. She also works as a Strategic Advisor and Impact Podcast Producer for Radio Workshop, where she develops organisational strategies and produces media campaigns for social impact. In her previous role, she was the Director for Learning and Innovation efforts at the Children's Radio Foundation, overseeing youth-led media projects across six African countries, and served as Southern Africa Correspondent for Radio France Internationale, producing documentaries on health, education, and environmental issues.

Clémence holds an MPhil in Inclusive Innovation from the University of Cape Town, where her research explored climate change communication for social change campaigns in Africa. She also earned a Master's in Journalism from the Institute of Journalism of Bordeaux and a Post-Graduate Diploma in Political Science from Institut d'Études Politiques in France. Her work reflects a deep commitment to using media and interdisciplinary approaches to drive social justice and sustainable impact globally.

Phelisa Sikwata is a multidisciplinary artist with expertise in coordination, research, and community engagement. Their work centres on cultivating collaborative, emotionally intelligent environments through powerful storytelling and compelling performance. By fusing creative expression with research-driven insight, Phelisa produces thought-provoking work that amplifies marginalised voices and engages with pressing social justice issues. Their advocacy focuses on LGBTQI+ healing, mental health, and innovative approaches to community-based research- demonstrating a deep commitment to personal and collective transformation.

Currently, Phelisa serves as an Engaged Research Fellow at Pivot Collective Consulting. They previously held the role of Social Impact Designer at Pivot Collective NPC, where they led transformative youth programmes using arts-based methodologies. Phelisa is also the founder of inQ.U.E.E.Ries, a creative project dedicated to healing within the LGBTQI+ community through writing. Their artistic contributions include work on the Planet Divoc 91 webcomic and performances as a poet and facilitator at numerous cultural and advocacy events.

In recognition of their impact, Phelisa has been awarded fellowships such as the Quote This Woman+ Voices Fellowship (2024–2025); SPRINNG Writing Fellowship (2023), and the DGMT Innovation Fellowship (2023–2024).

Anna Versfeld, PhD, found her way into medical anthropology twenty years ago through a fascination with the disjunctures between the assumptions of health research and service provision, and the lived realities and needs of people seeking care. She has brought this fascination, and a determination to bridge these gaps, to a wide range of health research and implementation projects, consulting both in South Africa and globally.

Anna has worked in the development sector for over two decades, building diverse experience in programme management, research design and implementation, youth development, participatory engagement, and grant support and oversight. She has consulted extensively for the Stop TB Partnership and the Global Fund, with a special focus on gender and TB. Notable projects include qualitative leadership in a study on hepatitis C among vulnerable populations in three South African cities; leadership of two South African Tuberculosis Community, Rights and Gender Assessments (and support for assessments in nine other countries); and an engaged qualitative research project on barriers to TB care among refugee populations in north-east Nigeria.

Anna's doctoral work focused on the interplay between tuberculosis and substance use in care facilities in Cape Town. This work resulted in the publication of her book, Making Uncertainty: Tuberculosis, Substance Use and Pathways to Health in South Africa (Rutgers University Press), and deepened her commitment to harm reduction. This built on earlier research into drug use in Manenberg, a marginalised community in Cape Town, through which she came to recognise the structural drivers of habitual drug use.

Most of what he does starts with what's already there, the knowledge in the team and across Pivot's partners, and then finding the threads that connect it. He likes to work things out together, and builds small ways for everyone to weigh in, so that the ideas and designs end up a shared result.

At Pivot that has meant developing the visual identity and website, bringing the same care to its projects and its partners' work, and gathering what Pivot knows into one place the team can draw on. His background runs through print, photography, brand work and the web, and more and more the systems underneath it all.