Trained in demography, Dr Nicol has developed expertise in evaluating and strengthening routine health information systems (RHIS). He is a member of the National Health Information System of South Africa (NHISSA) Committee and an Extraordinary Lecturer at Stellenbosch University’s Health Systems and Public Health Division. Dr Nicol is currently a Principal Investigator (PI) on several studies including the “Evaluation of availability and quality of morbidity data in RHIS in hospitals in NHI pilot districts (MbHIS-QUAL)”, CDC-funded studies on “Strengthening Health System’s Capacity for Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) and Linkage to HIV care for Adolescent Girls and Young Women (AGYW) and Adolescent Boys and Young Men (ABYM) in South Africa” (SHeS’Cap-PrEP and SHeS’Cap-Linkage). His interests include mortality and morbidity analysis, monitoring and evaluation of maternal, neonatal, and child health programmes, including health system strengthening for HIV prevention and care, and evaluation of HIS, with a special focus on data quality improvement, data use, and capacity development on data management competences.