Eliza Govender an NRF rated researcher, is an Associate Professor and Academic Leader of the Centre for Communication, Media and Society (CCMS), in the School of Applied Human Sciences at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. She teaches social change and health communication. Her research interests include entertainment education, communication for social and behavioural change and participatory culture-centred methodologies for health communication and implementation science research.  Her specific research centres on the use of a participatory action research approaches (PAR) and a culture-centred approach to advance HIV combination prevention. Govender was recipient of the NRF three -year Thuthuka grant that utilises a socio-ecological framework to explore a multi-layered tailored communication approach for new biomedical innovations. During her time as a social scientist at CAPRISA, Govender was co-principal investigator (PI) for the Oral PrEP Demonstration Project (CAPRISA 084). Govender has been an advisor on several communication committees and task teams on strategic social and behavior change communication for HIV prevention.  She is a member of the editorial board of the journal Communicare, a Review Editor for Frontiers in Communication: Journal of Culture and Communication and vice-chair of the Health Communication working group for the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR). Govender is also part on the KZN DOH committee for developing and implementing the provincial Health Promotion Strategy for COVID-19.