Marieke van der Zalm is an Associate Professor in Pediatrics and Child Health at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. She has over a decade of experience as an investigator working on pediatric tuberculosis (TB) diagnostic and treatment studies at the Desmond Tutu TB centre (DTTC).
Since 2017, she is the principal investigator of an ongoing TB diagnostic and lung health cohort called “Umoya” in Cape Town South Africa, which is funded through an NIH-R01 (PI B Bryson), an European & Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP) senior career fellowship and an NIH-K43 emerging global leader award to investigate long-term consequences of TB in children. I have been involved in several initiatives to drive the post TB pediatric agenda. This includes leading the Post TB health and well-being section of the World Health Organizations operational handbook for the management of TB in children and adolescents, a recently published clinical statement and the post TB chapter in the European Respiratory Society’s handbook. Furthermore, I was founder and co-organizer of the 1st and 2nd international Post TB symposium in Stellenbosch, South Africa.