Nicola Deghaye is a health economist and Research Fellow in the Health Policy Unit at the Institute of Tropical Medicine (ITM) in Antwerp. Her work focuses on global health financing and health systems financing in low- and middle-income countries.

From 2004 to 2016, she worked as a health economist in South Africa, primarily in the fields of HIV and tuberculosis, with a particular focus on costing studies and cost-effectiveness analyses of health interventions. During this period, she also assessed trends in health financing across East and Southern Africa.

From 2017 to 2024, she worked in the fields of education and disability economics. In early 2023, she completed a PhD in Education Economics at Stellenbosch University, South Africa.

Nicola moved to Belgium in 2022 and joined ITM in 2025.