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Director, Genomics Research Institute; Director, Centre for Microbial Ecology and Genomics, University of Pretoria

I was educated in New Zealand at the University of Waikato and completed a period of postdoctoral study there before moving to University College London as a Lecturer in 1985. After 16 years in London, I accepted the position at Professor of Microbiology in the Department of Biotechnology at the University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, where I was a Senior Professor and Director of the 60-strong Institute Microbial Biotechnology and Metagenomics. I moved to the University of Pretoria in May 2012 in the dual role as Director of both the University of Pretoria Institutional Research Theme in Genomics and my research group, the Centre for Microbial Ecology and Genomics. The latter is housed in a newly refurbished1000m2 laboratory suite on the Hatfield Campus.

I have published over 230 research papers, review articles and book chapters, and sit on the Editorial Boards of 10 international journals.

I hold the posts of Professor Emeritus at the University of the Western Cape, of Adjunct Professor at the University of Waikato (NZ), was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa in 2007, as a Member of the Academy of Sciences of South Africa in 2008, and as an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 2009. I was awarded an NRF A rating in 2013, the UWC Vice-Rector’s Award for Research Excellence in 2008 and the South African Society for Microbiology Silver Medal in 2009. I am currently President of the Royal Society of South Africa.

My research activities encompass several disparate fields, but many linked by the theme of ‘environmental extremes’. Our collaborators include researchers in South Africa, Namibia, Kenya, Zambia, Argentina, New Zealand, the UK, Germany, and the US. Since my PhD studies, I have retained an interest in the ecology and enzymology of extreme thermophiles, organisms living at the temperature of boiling water. For the past decade I have also worked at the lower end of the biotic temperature scale with New Zealand and American scientists, studying the microbiology of the Dry Valleys of Eastern Antarctica. I have research interests in other sectors of microbial ecology including the haloalkaline African Rift Valley lakes, the prokaryotic and phage communities in high salt environments and the structure and function of hot desert communities.

Experience

  • –present
    Director, Genomics Research Institute Director, Centre for Microbial Ecology and Genomics, University of Pretoria

Grants and Contracts

  • 2014
    Role:
    Director, Genomics Research Institute; Director, Centre for Microbial Ecology and Genomics
    Funding Source:
    National Research Foundation