Sara is a Specialist Scientist at Cochrane South Africa, serving as the portfolio lead of the Social and Behavioural Science (SBS). She is also an Associate Professor Extraordinary in the Department of Global Health at Stellenbosch University and Honorary Research Associate in the School of Public Health at the University of Cape Town.

Sara has an academic background in Psychology and History and a PhD in Medical Sociology. Her research seeks to bridge critical social science theory and methodologies with public health, most recently focusing on issues of chronic illness, use of qualitative evidence is policy- and decision-making and qualitative evidence synthesis methodology. Sara is on the editorial board of the Journal of Critical Public Health (JCPH) and a member of the Social Science Working Group of the Coalition for Equitable Research in Low-resource Settings (CERCLE). She supervises Masters and PhD students and contributes to teaching in qualitative health research at UCT, UWC and Stellenbosch University. She has published over 80 peer reviewed articles and holds an NRF C1 rating.