Francisca Mutapi is a professor in Global Health Infection and Immunity, co-Director of the Global Health Academy and Deputy Director of the NIHR Global Health Research Unit TIBA (Tackling Infections to Benefit Africa), an Africa-led research and training partnership focusing on infectious diseases, at the University of Edinburgh. She conducts and leads basic scientific research that has had an extraordinary impact on the policy, practice and control of Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) globally. She is a Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences, the Zimbabwe Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society of Edinburgh as well as a successful visual artist and author.