Marietjie Venter

Marietjie Venter received a PhD (Medical Virology) (Wits) on Respiratory Syncytial Virus molecular epidemiology and cellular immunology in 2003 before getting postdoctoral training at the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, USA on West Nile virus pathogenesis. In this time she was employed as Principal Medical Scientist at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) (1999-2005), first in the molecular virology and later the special pathogens Units. In 2006 she accepted a faculty position, Department Medical Virology, University of Pretoria (UP) and launched the Zoonotic, Arbo and Respiratory Virus research (ZARV) programme while in various joint appointments over the next 14 years: first with NHLS (2006-2009) then as co-director of the Centre for Respiratory Diseases and Meningitis and National Influenza Centre Director (2009-2014), NICD. From 2014-2016 she worked for the US Centres of Disease Control and Prevention (US-CDC), Global Disease Detection Programme, South Africa as One Health Programme director. In 2016 she accepted a full time full Professor position in the Department Medical Virology UP to head the ZARV, Centre for Viral Zoonoses, UP. Her research group has a One Health focus on zoonotic, arbo and respiratory viruses in humans, animals and mosquitoes. She has >120 publications and >4000 citations in international scientific journals with an H index of 32. She won the National Science and Technology Forum (NSTF) award for the best output by a senior scientist over 5-10 years in South Africa (2013). Prof Venter is advisor to the World Health Organisation (WHO) on respiratory viruses and Influenza surveillance and serves on the scientific advisory board of the Global One Health Platform.