Danica studied at the University of Cape Town (2011-2019) in South Africa (BSc – distinction, BMedScHons – distinction, MScMed – distinction, PhD) before joining the University of the Western Cape as an educationalist (2020-2023). She joined Oxford in 2023 and is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Education and the Course Director for the MSc in Medical Education programme.

The #RhodesMustFall student-led protests in South Africa (2015), calling for free, decolonised Higher Education, sparked her jump from biomedical sciences (cancer research) to educational research. Her PhD in Health Sciences Education explored clinician-educators’ conceptions of assessment, and factors influencing their assessment practices, in medical programmes in diverse Southern settings.

Since then, Danica has been shortlisted for and won Team Teaching Excellence awards from the University of the Western Cape (2021; 2022; 2023) and received a University of Oxford, Social Science Division, Teaching excellence award: Early career strand (2024) for her leadership in the MSc in Medical Education. In addition, she has been awarded consecutive Teaching Enhancement and Development Grants (2024-2025; 2025-2026), and other internal and external funds. Since 2023, Danica has been an Honorary Research Associate at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa, in the Biomedical Engineering and Healthcare Technology Research Centre, and in 2025 she received a prestigious South African National Research Foundation (NRF) Y-rating for recognition of her research.

Her research interests include assessment and feedback, curriculum transformation, technology-enhanced education, professional identity, international medical graduates, faculty development, critical and alternative qualitative research methodologies, and issues of social and epistemic justice in medical and health professions education. Danica welcomes DPhil applications in these topics.