Dr Raphela is a Socio-Ecological Scientist, on the social part, she looks at how disasters particularly floods can cause or exacerbate the Mental Health of communities, and on the Ecology part, she focuses on Conservation, biodiversity, and Ecosystem-Based Disaster Risk Reduction. Dr Raphela has graduated six Honors students and twelve master’s students in Disaster Management. She is currently supervising eight master’s students and two Ph.D. students in Disaster Management. In addition, Dr. Raphela has published the majority of her articles in Quantile One Journals, and conference proceedings and has contributed to a Springer book chapter. In addition to attending and presenting her work at more than 20 national and international conferences, Dr. Raphela has secured funding from the National Research Foundation for her 1st Interdisciplinary Project on “The holistic Resilience and Preparedness of Hospitals across the Free State Province for Biological Disasters” in collaborating with colleagues from the Centre for Disaster Preparedness (USA), UNUEHS (Germany) and the HSRC (South Africa).