Professor Frances Cowan

Biography

Frances Cowan is a clinical epidemiologist and implementation researcher. Since 1999 she has been based in Zimbabwe where she established a broad portfolio of HIV and sexual and reproductive health implementation research focusing on marginalised and vulnerable populations including sex workers, adolescents and high-risk men.

In 2012 she founded the Centre for Sexual Health and HIV/AIDS Research Zimbabwe, an independent Zimbabwean research unit with close links to the Zimbabwe Ministry of Health which she directed until standing down in May 2022. Frances has built and maintained strong academic partnerships with academic institutions across the world including University College London, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM), London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, University of York, Erasmus University, Institute of Tropical Medicine, University of California San Francisco, UC Berkeley, University of North Carolina, University of Pennsylvania, and Johns Hopkins University. She was deputy director of UNITAID’s STAR consortium (2015-2020), a game-changing initiative to promote HIV self-testing in Africa. In 2009 she set up the Sisters with a Voice programme, one of the few nationally scaled programmes for sex workers in Africa, which supports implementation research to provide evidence for sex worker programming regionally and globally. She led the programme from 2009-2022. Between 2019-2025 Frances led the AMETHIST Consortium (Zimbabwe, Malawi South Africa, UK) through a Wellcome Trust Collaborative Award in Science. She has also been a member of or chaired a number of World Health Organisation Guideline Development Committee and World Health Organisation /UNAIDS/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expert panels, is a member of the Global Fund Technical Review Panel, and on a number of UK Research Boards.

Research interests

Frances’s research interests focus on HIV prevention and care as well as sexual and reproductive health research, much of which has influenced global and regional policy. Specifically she has conducted research to better understand the ‘how to’ of epidemic control. This has included research with key populations. Evaluation of prevention of mother to child transmission programmes, developing, implementing and evaluating strategies to support scale up of HIV self-testing (work which was later adapted to CV19 self-testing) as well as a series of projects with adolescents including adolescents living with HIV and adolescent girls and young women who sell sex. Between 2010 and 2020 Frances supported the re-establishment of mental health research in Zimbabwe through building collaborations and raising funding for mental health research capacity strengthening across East and Southern Africa. Her research has been supported by a range of funders research and programme funders. In addition, she mentors and supports a number of researchers including to obtain European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership, Medical Research Council, National Institute for Health and Care Research Trust, and Wellcome Trust fellowships.

Teaching

Frances teaches on a number of master’s courses at LSTM and other UK and overseas universities. Between 2010 and 2020 she led or co-led a series of research capacity strengthening initiatives in Africa in partnership with University of Zimbabwe and other regional universities. These programmes, funded through Wellcome Trust African Institutes Initiative and DELTAS initiative as well as through National Institutes of Health/Fogarty funding provided support for over 60 PhD students and 6 post-doctoral fellowships across Zimbabwe, Malawi, Ethiopia, South Africa and Zambia. In addition, these grants supported 25 students to undertake MPhils in Public Mental Health at University of Cape Town. 

Selected research publications

HIV Prevalence, Virological Suppression, and Consistent Condom Use Among Social Venue-Going Men in Zimbabwe: Insights from the 2022 Priorities for Local AIDS Control Efforts (PLACE) Surveys – Journal: AIDS and Behavior – Published: 14th March 2026

Values and preferences of female sex workers in Zimbabwe for long-acting injectable pre-exposure prophylaxis and the dapivirine vaginal ring: results of a mixed-methods research study – Journal: BMJ Global Health – Published: 2nd March 2026

“We carried her in a wheelbarrow to the clinic”: process evaluation of the AMETHIST intervention combining microplanning with self-help groups to improve HIV prevention and treatment among female sex workers in Zimbabwe – Journal: BMC Health Services Research – Published: 7th February 2026

Perceptions of integrating cervical cancer screening with HIV and sexual and reproductive health services: results from serial multiple methods studies among health workers and women in Zimbabwe – Journal: Reproductive Health – Published: 29th December 2025

Impact and cost-effectiveness of the community-led AMETHIST intervention among female sex workers in Zimbabwe – Journal: Nature Communications – Published: 13th December 2025

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