Pranitha Maharaj, Ph.D. is an associate professor at the School of Development Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban. Before joining the School of Development Studies she was a lecturer at the Department of Sociology at the University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg. She holds a Ph.D. from the Centre for Population Studies at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Her areas of interest include aging, sexual and reproductive health, and HIV prevention. She has published widely in top international and national journals, and is also currently involved in policy research. Her most recent work, published in Research on Aging, investigated the impact of AIDS on older people in South Africa.