Tendani Gaolathe is the senior advisor for the Botswana-based operations of the Botswana-Rutgers Partnership for Health. She is a lead investigator for the partnership’s research and capacity-building initiatives related to cancer care and prevention, COVID-19, and health care training in Botswana. 

Gaolathe’s career clinical and research focus has been HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment. Through the Botswana–Harvard AIDS Institute Partnership and the U.S. President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) training and capacity–building program, she has served as principal investigator for two cooperative agreements. She helped to develop and lead the Botswana Master Trainer Program for doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and lab technicians in support of the national rollout of antiretroviral treatment program clinics, laboratory decentralization, and monitoring and evaluation efforts. She also conducted clinical research while serving as director of the Botswana Combination Prevention Project, which was a collaboration with the Botswana Ministry of Health and Wellness, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Since 2007, Gaolathe has chaired the Government of Botswana’s National HIV/AIDS Treatment Guidelines Committee. She advises several technical working groups, whose efforts have influenced national guideline changes for HIV care and management, drug forecasting, and budgeting.  

Gaolathe continues to work and teach at Botswana’s main referral hospital, Princess Marina Hospital in Gaborone, as a specialist in internal medicine. A native of Botswana, she received a medical degree from St. George’s University in Grenada and completed medical residencies at St. Michael’s Medical Center in Newark, New Jersey.