He additionally holds academic appointments as a Visiting Professor at the Department of Public Health and Primary Care, Ghent University. Stanley was trained as a medical doctor (2000; University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands) with an MSc in Public Health for Developing Countries (2003; LSHTM, UK) and a PhD in Health Sciences (2008; Ghent University, Belgium).
His career spans more than 20 years working in medical and public health research, as well as program implementation in various low- and middle-income countries. He worked across a range of political and cultural settings, including more than 12 years living and working in sub-Saharan Africa, including Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, Malawi, and now Zimbabwe. He has particular expertise in the design, conduct, management and analysis of clinical, behavioural, and health systems interventions that have a population health impact, with an extensive background assessing the health status and intervention effectiveness among vulnerable populations. He has led over 30 research studies as Principal Investigator, including pragmatic trials, (cluster) randomized controlled trials, quasi-experimental studies, cohort studies, diagnostic performance studies, qualitative inquiries, and numerous implementation science and capacity building projects.
His portfolio of work has centred around sexual and reproductive health, and maternal and child health, and within this field he advanced a number of focus areas, including: Involvement of men to improve maternal and neonatal health outcomes; Effects of climate change on maternal and child health; Sexually transmitted infections, and key populations including sex workers and people who inject drugs. In 2013/14 he worked with Dr Mavhu on a multi-country maternal and child health project. Since 2019, he has made the work around the impacts of climate change on health a priority topic, and has been particularly assessing the health effects and community perceptions of extreme heat events on maternal and child heath in Africa. To this effect, he is the joint-Principal Investigator of the NIH-funded HE2AT Center, and is leading the HIGH Horizons project, a Horizons Europe funded project assessing integrated mitigation and adaptation interventions in Africa.
He has published over 200 publications in international peer-reviewed journals in the fields of sexual and reproductive health and other emerging health issues from low-income settings. Currently, he is supervising ten PhD students as Primary supervisor.