Core team
Prof. Corné van Walbeek
Principal Investigator and Professor, Director of REEP, School of Economics, University of Cape Town
Corné is currently a Professor at the School of Economics at UCT, and Director of the Research Unit on the Economics of Excisable Products (REEP). His research interests are primarily in the economics of tobacco control, and in particular how changes in the excise tax on tobacco products can affect cigarette consumption. Within this field, his research has focused on the estimation of price elasticities of demand, how excise tax increases impact the poor, changes in smoking by different demographic groups over time, and the industry’s reaction to changes in the tobacco excise tax.
Zunda Chisha
Interim Programme Director, and Research Officer, REEP, School of Economics, University of Cape Town
Zunda is a Zambian PhD candidate working with the Economics of Tobacco Control Project at REEP. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Zambia and a Master’s degree in health economics from UCT. He is also involved in a project on the impact of cigarette tax increases on the illicit cigarette market in low and middle income countries. His areas of interest include the public health impact of tobacco taxation, understanding the illicit trade of tobacco and the translation of these into policy.
Sam Filby
Project manager of the Knowledge Hub and Research Officer, Research on the Economics of Excisable Products, School of Economics, University of Cape Town
Sam Filby is the project manager of the Knowledge Hub and a research officer at the Research Unit on the Economics of Excisable Products (REEP). She is also a lecturer and course convenor in the School of Economics at the University of Cape Town. Sam holds a Masters in economics, specializing in economic development from the University of Cape Town. Sam has has four years' research experience in the economics of tobacco control. Her current research is focussed on implementation of Article 6 of the FCTC and tobacco tax modelling. Sam has developed tobacco tax models for various low- and middle-income countries, including Vanuatu, Georgia, Cabo Verde and the Philippines, amongst others.
Nur Toffar
Operations and Grant Manager, Research Unit on the Economics of Excisable Products (REEP), School of Economics, University of Cape Town
Nur is the Operations and Grants Coordinator at REEP. He comes with many years of experience in financial reporting in another department at UCT.
Auxiliary team
Toughedah Jacobs
Consultant for the WHO FCTC Knowledge Hub on Tobacco Taxation and Illicit Trade
Toughedah Jacobs was Programme Director for the WHO FCTC Knowledge Hub on Tobacco Taxation, before becoming an external consultant at the start of 2022. She moved to the Research Unit on the Economics of Excisable Products (REEP) from the Development Policy Research Unit (DPRU), where she was the Project Manager for 8 years, successfully managing large and complex academic and policy-oriented research programmes. Toughedah obtained her M.Comm in Economics from the University of Cape Town in 2007. She worked at the Western Cape Provincial Treasury before joining the University of Cape Town.
Micheal Kofi Boachie
Postdoctoral Fellow, Research Unit on the Economics of Excisable Products (REEP), School of Economics, University of Cape Town
Micheal is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Research Unit on the Economics of Excisable Products (REEP), University of Cape Town. He received his BA and MPhil degrees in Economics from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana, and a PhD (Economics) degree from Annamalai University, India. Micheal has research interests in Health Economics and the economics aspects of Tobacco Control.
Vanessa Darasamo
Data Clearing House Co-ordinator and PhD student, REEP, School of Economics, University of Cape Town
Vanessa Darsamo holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and Demography from the University of Swaziland and completed a Masters Degree in Development Economics from the University of Cape Town. Vanessa studied the societal costs of methamphetamine use in the Western Cape province in partial fulfilment of the degree in Development Economics. Vanessa is the project coordinator in the Tobacco and Alcohol Data Clearinghouse, which is concerned with collection and dissemination of tobacco and alcohol-related data. Previously, Vanessa worked with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine on HIV costing studies with International Research Exchange Board (IREX) on a media strengthening project.
Sharon De Bruyns
Administrator, REEP, School of Economics, University of Cape Town
Sharon is the administrator of the Research Unit on the Economics of Excisable Products (REEP). Her functions include: HR, Finance, organising workshops, data cleaning and capturing, and managing the website. Sharon joined our team in June 2013. She has much experience having worked at Old Mutual for 26 years.
Senzo Mthembu
Research Officer, REEP, School of Economics, University of Cape Town
Senzo Mthembu joined the Research Unit on the Economics of Excisable Products (REEP) as a Research Officer. Senzo completed his Masters in Commerce, specializing in Economic Science at the University of Cape Town. His Masters thesis analysed the socioeconomic impact of stock volatility in the fishing industry. Senzo's research interests include data quality, socioeconomic issues and labour economics with a focus on inequality, price elasticity and public policy. His current project at REEP is on the tobacco tax reforms, within the context of promoting economic and human development in West Africa.
Kirsten van der Zee
Research Officer, REEP, School of Economics, University of Cape Town
Kirsten is a Research Officer for the Research Unit on the Economics of Excisable Products (REEP). She holds a Masters specialising in Applied Economics from the University of Cape Town, where her Masters thesis analyses minimum wages in the South African agricultural sector. She has research experience in development economics with a focus on labour economics, minimum wages, and poverty and inequality analysis. Her current research focuses on the collection of cigarette price data in Africa and tobacco taxation policy in South Africa.
Nicole Vellios
Research Officer, REEP, School of Economics, University of Cape Town
Nicole holds a Masters of Social Science in Economics (specialising in Economic Development) from UCT. She joined the Research Unit on the Economics of Excisable Products (REEP) as a Masters student in 2011, and after graduating, joined the project full-time. Her Masters level thesis focused on the determinants of smoking initiation in South Africa using the first wave of the National Income Dynamics Study. Her current research interests include the impact of tobacco taxation on public health, the illicit trade of tobacco products, and the determinants of smoking initiation.
Visiting scholars
Jean Tesche
USA
Jean Tesche has a PhD in Economics (CGE models, Comparative Econ Systems) from Columbia Business School at Columbia University. She has considerable experience in tax policy, administration, and modelling: particularly tobacco tax modelling. She has taught economics in the US, Hungary and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and worked with US Treasury’s Office of Technical Assistance, the World Bank and the World Health Organization, mostly in the Balkans, Eastern Europe and Africa. Jean was a visiting researcher at the University of Cape Town from Feb. 2019 - Aug. 2020, and continues to work with the Knowledge Hub on Tobacco Taxation and Illicit Trade as a special consultant.