I am a professor in the School of Physiology, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. I undertook my PhD training in thermoregulation and fever, but I shifted my focus to studying pain in people living with HIV after completing my degree. Since then I have led an active research programme in the field of pain, and the work of my laboratory currently focuses on the epidemiology of pain and painful diabetic neuropathy. My expertise has seen me make significant contributions to developing local and international guidelines for the management, diagnosis and grading, and phenotyping of neuropathic pain.