Dr May van Schalkwyk

Dr May van Schalkwyk is a Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh. Her research aims to explain how commercial actors influence ideas, knowledge, science and policymaking. She publishes research on the tobacco, alcohol, gambling, fossil fuels, opioid, pesticide and firearm industries.

Before transitioning into the field of public health research, May completed her post-graduate medical degree at the University of Sydney and has worked in the fields of malaria and cell-based immunotherapy research, HIV medicine, lung oncology and translational medicine. She entered specialty training in August 2016 as a Public Health Specialty Registrar and an Academic Clinical Fellow. During her Academic Clinical Fellowship, her research focused on the commercial determinants of health as well as the impacts of trade and Brexit on public health. In 2023, May completed her PhD on UK gambling policy and the gambling industry as a NIHR Doctoral Fellow at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

May now works at the University of Edinburgh in the commercial determinants of health in the Global Health Policy Unit and the Centre for Pesticide Suicide Prevention. She is also an honorary research fellow with the Commercial Determinants of Research Group (CDRG) at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and holds an honorary consultant position in Public Health Scotland.