From South Africa to Oklahoma: Dr. Anthony Coetzer-Liversage Brings a Global Perspective to Implementation Science
The Hudson College of Public Health is pleased to welcome Dr. Anthony Coetzer‑Liversage, a new faculty member in the Department of Health Promotion Sciences. With a career spanning multiple countries, disciplines, and sectors, Dr. Coetzer‑Liversage brings a global perspective to public health and a deep commitment to ensuring evidence‑based solutions reach the communities that need them most.
He is an implementation scientist, educator, and academic‑practitioner whose work bridges research and real‑world impact across behavioral health, chronic disease, public health systems, and workforce development. At the Hudson College of Public Health, he plans to help teams move innovations from concept to adoption, adaptation, and long‑term sustainment, ensuring evidence‑based practices truly improve the lives of the communities they’re designed for.
“I’m interested in the science and practice of making solutions fit—fit people, fit systems, fit context,” he noted.
A Cross‑Disciplinary Path Built for Complex Problems
Originally from South Africa, Dr. Coetzer-Liversage’s career spans pharmacy, psychology, clinical pastoral care, addiction care, prevention science, and implementation science, an unusually broad foundation that gives him a nuanced understanding of human behavior, health systems, culture, and meaning.
His journey began with three years of pharmacy training, followed by clinical work and psychological research (including supporting refugees in Cape Town), and later clinical pastoral care, where he explored meaning‑making, spirituality, and human responses to trauma and illness.
Dr. Coetzer-Liversage transitioned formally into public health through his work with the City of Cape Town, where he provided employee assistance program services to senior municipal leadership and evaluated wellness programs serving more than 27,000 employees.
During this period, he also became involved in global prevention workforce development, contributing to international training initiatives with Applied Prevention Science International (APSI) and the Colombo Plan, supporting prevention capacity‑building efforts alongside the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the United States Department of State. This work deepened his interest in scaling evidence‑based interventions and improving global prevention quality and consistency.
“As a clinician, I realized I didn’t want to just put plasters on problems at the end,” he said. “I wanted to work upstream at the source.”
This commitment brought Dr. Coetzer-Liversage to the United States, first as a Fulbright Scholar in the Hubert H. Humphrey Program, and later to complete his Ph.D. and postdoctoral fellowship.
Across fields, he has consistently produced influential scholarship: a psychology honors thesis on religiosity and suicide ideation among South African youth; a first‑of‑its‑kind master’s thesis on MSM, HIV, spirituality, and meaning‑making; and a Ph.D. that developed the Human‑Centered Innovation Process, a grounded theory explaining how prevention professionals implement evidence‑based interventions in real‑world settings.
This cross‑disciplinary lens, spanning science, systems, psychology, and human meaning, now shapes his approach to public‑health innovation.
A Focus on Prevention and Implementation
These experiences led Dr. Coetzer‑Liversage into the field of prevention science and eventually to a Ph.D. focused on behavioral health prevention. Over time, his work expanded into implementation science, which examines how proven practices are adopted, adapted, and sustained in diverse real‑world settings.
“I became interested in why evidence-based practices weren’t always reaching people,” he said. “Why didn’t clinicians know about them? Why were they so difficult to implement?”
His academic work includes developing new theoretical models, publishing original research on human‑centered implementation processes, and contributing to large multi‑site studies supported by agencies such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). His dissertation, the Human‑Centered Innovation Process, is now cited within the implementation‑science literature.
Today, his research explores how innovations in mental health, chronic disease, and public health systems can be successfully adopted, implemented, and sustained.
Before joining the Hudson College of Public Health, Dr. Coetzer‑Liversage served as an academic‑practitioner in Minneapolis for a State Commission, directing and evaluating statewide programs in behavioral health recovery, housing navigation, refugee resettlement, and public health workforce development.
“I often describe myself as a ‘pracademic,’” he said. “Someone who bridges research and real-world practice.”
Working with the University of Rhode Island (URI) and Augusta University, he began addressing challenges in implementing behavioral‑health and chronic‑disease interventions, focusing on fidelity, adaptation, quality improvement, and workforce support. His implementation‑science postdoctoral fellowship at URI accelerated this work, producing peer‑reviewed publications on: fidelity and human‑centered design; implementation processes; peer recovery support; and cross‑system behavioral‑health interventions. His contributions in mixed‑methods research, fidelity measurement, and implementation quality continue to influence applied practice settings.
Research That Bridges Science and Practice
Across his research portfolio, Dr. Coetzer‑Liversage focuses on how innovations are designed, implemented, adapted, and sustained within real public‑health and behavioral‑health systems. He is the first author of multiple peer‑reviewed publications advancing human‑centered, pragmatic, and equity‑focused implementation approaches.
His scholarly work includes the development of the Human‑Centered Innovation Process, a grounded theory published in Health Behavior Research that explains how prevention professionals implement evidence‑based interventions in community settings.
He has also published on human‑centered design and fidelity measure development for mental health interventions, demonstrating how design principles can improve the usability, acceptability, and equity of fidelity tools for mental‑health providers.
Additional publications focus on peer‑support pathways and cross‑sector collaborations to highlight how recovery systems can be strengthened by clarifying roles, improving supervision and training structures, and building organizational readiness for peer integration.
His contributions extend into multi‑site and international research, including validation studies (e.g., Group Process Assessment for Youth Who Misuse Substances), cross‑system behavioral health work (e.g., linkage facilitation), and psychological, public‑health, and health‑behavior investigations spanning COVID‑19, chronic disease, disaster risk management, structural equation modeling, mental health, and spirituality.
Through these projects, Dr. Coetzer‑Liversage brings a consistent focus on mixed‑methods inquiry, pragmatic measurement and design, community partnership, and improving the fit of interventions within real‑world systems. He plans to continue evolving his research at the University of Oklahoma, where he aims to build interdisciplinary collaborations that strengthen public‑health and behavioral‑health systems in Oklahoma and beyond.
Supporting Innovation Across Public Health
At the Hudson College of Public Health, Dr. Coetzer‑Liversage looks forward to collaborating across disciplines and helping translate innovations into solutions for wicked problems affecting population health.
“What excites me most is working with colleagues on the innovations they’re already developing,” he said. “Researchers know their content area deeply. Implementation science helps ensure those solutions actually reach the communities they’re meant to serve.”
Because implementation science is applicable across fields, from COPD and cancer prevention to environmental health and surveillance, he sees significant opportunity for interdisciplinary collaboration.
“Whether someone is working on COPD, cancer prevention, or environmental surveillance, the question is the same,” he noted. “How do we help those innovations move beyond research and into real-world use?”
He brings expertise in hybrid effectiveness‑implementation studies, implementation strategy design, and pragmatic evaluation, skills that strengthen collaborative research, grant development, and cross‑disciplinary partnerships across the College.
A Global Perspective on Public Health
Dr. Coetzer‑Liversage’s international experience shapes his approach to public‑health challenges. Having worked with diverse communities, he emphasizes understanding the needs and perspectives of the people programs are designed to serve. His work frequently incorporates human‑centered design, ensuring that community voices guide program development and adaptation.
“You always have to ask: Who are the people we’re working with, and what do they actually need, and how can we partner with them?”
His global research experience (spanning health promotion, forgiveness science, HIV, MSM health, trauma, spirituality, refugee resettlement, and public‑health and prevention workforce development) informs his commitment to equity‑focused, culturally responsive implementation and to the use of critical social‑science lenses that question assumptions and power dynamics.
Teaching for Real-World Impact
Dr. Coetzer‑Liversage’s teaching is grounded in transformational, dialogic pedagogy, inspired by Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, whose work emphasizes problem‑posing learning, dialogue, praxis, and rejection of the traditional “banking model” of education. His classes position students as co‑investigators, engaging in cycles of action and reflection to understand how public‑health innovations can fit, function, and flourish in community settings.
As a Global Master Trainer with Applied Prevention Science International (APSI) since 2014, he has facilitated active‑learning, competency‑based training across countries and cultures. His Humphrey/Fulbright Fellowship strengthened his knowledge of adult learning, hybrid teaching, and online instructional design, all of which shape his classroom environment.
Anthony has designed curricula across higher‑education levels and taught a wide range of courses, from Research Methods and Social & Behavioral Science Theories to Clinical Trials Management, Grounded Theory, Prevention Science, and Design Innovation. His teaching is deeply applied, drawing on real implementation examples, human‑centered design, and data from his own research and publicly available sources.
“My role isn’t just to lecture, it’s to facilitate learning,” he says. “Students should leave with skills, confidence, and deliverables that matter in the real world.”
Through project‑based mentorship, he guides undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral learners in producing portfolio‑ready products, implementation plans, fidelity tools, briefs, dashboards, and in developing the critical awareness needed to become thoughtful, equity‑driven public‑health practitioners.
Finding a Sense of Home in Oklahoma
Although far from his South African roots, Dr. Coetzer-Liversage found a familiar warmth in Oklahoma's people and landscapes.
“The friendliness reminded me a lot of home,” he said. “The landscapes and communities brought back memories.”
A small detail sealed it: the evening calls of guinea fowl near his home, echoing memories from his family’s farm.
“When I heard them, I thought, ‘Wow, this feels like home.’”
For Dr. Coetzer-Liversage, that sense of belonging reinforces his excitement about joining the Hudson College of Public Health community.
“I was looking for a place where people work together to solve problems,” he said. “And that’s exactly what I found here.”