Dr Anastasia (Tasha) Koch co-founded of Eh!woza together with conceptual artist Ed Young in 2013 as an extra-curricular project during her PhD studies. The informal interest-driven work developed over the subsequent years, and now exists as an independent NPO based in Cape Town. The organisation operates at the intersection of public engagement, youth advocacy, science communication and skills development to merge the biology of infectious disease with its social impact.

Tasha graduated with a PhD from the University of Cape Town in 2015, and in 2017 was awarded a Carnegie Corporation DEAL fellowship to use genomics to investigate the pathobiology of M. tuberculosis under the mentorship of Prof. Digby Warner in the Molecular Mycobacteriology Research Unit (MMRU) lab at UCT, where she remains an Honorary Lecturer. Her part-time biomedical research focusses in using genomics to understand the transmission and pathobiology of M. tuberculosis and she is a molecular biology advisor to the Desmond Tutu Health Foundation’s Aerobiology Research Centre.

In 2020, facilitated by a Wellcome Trust Discretionary Award in Public Engagement to establish Eh!woza as an independent NPO, Tasha shifted focus to work on Eh!woza full-time, where she manages conceptual, administrative and implementation areas of the organisation. Tasha is interested in developing impact assessment models for public engagement that are relevant to the local context; and in how the social determinants of health influence the uptake of biomedical interventions.