Brief Profile

Deborah Atobrah holds a PhD and an MPhil in African Studies from the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, in 2010 and 2003 respectively. She has two Post Graduate Certificates from the University of Bergen Norway, in Global Health Challenges (2010) and in Global Poverty and Development (2008). Trained as an Administrator, with a BSc in Administration from the University of Ghana Business School (1996), Deborah worked as a Customer Operations Officer for five years with Millicom Ghana Limited, operators of TIGO cellular communication. 

Prof. Atobrah won the Rockefeller Residency Award at the Bellagio Center of Rockefeller Foundation in 2012, and the Duke University Provost Travel Award 2013. In 2015, she became a fellow of Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health’s prestigious Takemi Program in Global Health. She is also a Catalyst Fellow at Centre of African Studies at the University of Edinburgh. In 2014, she was consulted to evaluate the gendered impacts of the Millennium Challenge Corporation’s water projects in Ghana. She also contributed a chapter on Ghana to the Progress of the World’s Women 2019-2020: Families in a Changing World, commissioned by UNWomen. Since 2018, Deborah has been a member of the Gender Working Group of the Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation on the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) Support Programme on Climate Change. Prior to her appointment as Director of CEGENSA, she was the coordinator of University of Ghana Required Courses.

Research Interest

Prof. Deborah Atobrah’s research interests are:

• Cultures of gender and health
• Cultures of family care for the chronically ill
• Socio-cultural aspects of non-communicable diseases
• Disease disclosure and stigmatization among the seriously sick
• Bioethics and Family Care for patients in Africa
• Care and social policy
• Qualitative Research Methodologies

She is the Treasurer of the African Studies Association of Africa. Deborah enjoys working out.