Dr Edward Nicol is a demographer and public health specialist currently a Specialist Scientist at the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC). He has a Masters degree from the University of Ghana and a PhD in public health from Stellenbosch University, South Africa. Dr Nicol has developed expertise in evaluating and strengthening routine health information systems, with over 15 years of experience conducting and facilitating health research in Africa, and has published in the field of maternal, neonatal, and child health programmes. He is an Extraordinary Lecturer at Stellenbosch University’s Health Systems and Public Health Division and a member of several advisory committees including the WHO Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) Working Group on quality and use of global immunization and surveillance data; the SAMRC Human Ethics Research Committee; and the National Department of Health's National Health Information System of South Africa Committee. He is currently the Principal Investigator (PI) on the "Evaluation of availability and quality of morbidity data in routine health information systems in hospitals in National Health Insurance pilot districts (MbHIS-QUAL)" study; and co-PI on a CDC-funded "Enhancing linkage to HIV care in South Africa" study. His current interests include mortality and morbidity analysis, evaluation of maternal, neonatal and child health programmes; and health information systems, in terms of data availability, data quality, accuracy and information use.