Elona Toska (MSc, DPhil) is an adolescent health researcher at the Centre for Social Science Research, University of Cape Town, South Africa. She is the Director of the Adolescent Accelerators Research Hub, a unit within CSSR. She co-leads several studies, including the Mzantsi Wakho Adolescent Health Study, HEY BABY adolescent mothers and heir children, the UPLIFT data linkage study, Screen and Support package, and HIV prevention among adolescents and young people in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Elona’s research interests include adolescent sexual and reproductive health, unplanned pregnancies, post-partum contraception, and understanding the social and structural factors which underlie HIV infection and poor sexual and reproductive health in adolescents and young people. She was born in Albania, but has spent most of her life practicing legal migration in the United Kingdom, United States, South East Asia, and since 2012, South Africa.
Elona works with an inspiring team of colleagues at the Universities of Oxford (UK), University College London (UK), University of Fort Hare (South Africa), and Curtin University (Australia), Paediatric Adolescent Treatment for Africa (PATA), UN agencies and governmental partners in South Africa and neighbouring countries. She can often be found facilitating energizers with young people or fellow researchers, usually with a toddler in tow.
