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Professor Maria Marchetti-Mercer is a Professor of Psychology at the University of the Witwatersrand, where she also serves as Assistant Dean of Research in the Faculty of Humanities. She previously held the position of Head of the School of Human and Community Development at Wits from 2012 to 2016 and served as Head of the Department of Psychology at the University of Pretoria from 2001 to 2011. Her academic qualifications include a BA, BAHons, a DLitt et Phil from the University of Johannesburg awarded in 1993, and an MA in Clinical Psychology. As a clinical psychologist and family therapist with nearly 30 years of experience training professional psychologists, particularly in family therapy, she completed her doctoral thesis on the Milan School of family therapy and received advanced postgraduate family therapy training in Italy.
Her research focuses on the psychological impact of migration and emigration on families, including the role of information and communication technologies in transnational African families, as well as topics in family therapy training and family murder. She is the co-editor of the book Transnational Families in Africa: Migrants and the Role of Information Communication Technologies, published by Wits University Press, and co-author of The Italian Diaspora in South Africa: Nostalgia, Identity, and Belonging in the Second and Third Generations, published by Routledge in 2023. Professor Marchetti-Mercer is an NRF-rated researcher and has published extensively in national and international journals. She received the Order of the Star of Italy in 2022 for her contributions to promoting Italy abroad and an award in 2008 from the Institute for School-Based Family Counseling and the University of San Francisco Center for Child and Family Development for outstanding international contributions to school-based family counselling.
Wits University research spotlights how modern Mzansi families thrive with non-nuclear structures, extended networks, and adaptive strategies amid inequality.
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