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With three ACGT members having been bestowed with the
honour of being among the Department of Science and Technology’s 2011
‘South African Women in Science’, the recent announcement of the Award
recipients served as a particular point of pride for the Centre and its
partner institutions.
The honoured members are Profs Jolanda Roux and Namrita
Lall of the University of Pretoria who are the proud winners of the
Distinguished Young Woman in Science Awards for ‘Life, Natural and
Engineering Sciences’ and ‘Indigenous Knowledge Systems’, respectively;
as well as Wits University’s Prof Maureen Coetzee who won the first
runner-up position in the category of Distinguished Woman in Science
for Life, Natural and Engineering Sciences.
Prof Roux – also a recent recipient of the Commonwealth
Forestry Organisation’s Queen’s Award - was recognised for her research
on the health of trees, focussing strongly on fungi and bacteria that
result in disease and death of trees. The majority of her work in this
regard looks at the diseases affecting commercial plantation forestry
species; namely Acacia mearnsii, Eucalyptus spp. and Pinus spp.
The Award received by Prof Lall was in honour of her
contribution of a scientific validation of the use of South African
plants for medicines and cosmetics. She is also internationally
recognised for her contributions to bioprospecting from traditional
knowledge on medicinal plants and, since 1997, has initiated various
research projects applying medicinal plants in areas including
tuberculosis, diabetes and cancer. She was a previous recipient of a
UNESCO L’Oreal Women in Science Award for her research on tuberculosis
in 2002.
Prof Coetzee has been involved in mosquito systematics
for 30 years and, in this time, has used genetic principles to discover
ten new species of Anopheles. Her award was bestowed for work that she
and her group have conducted resulting in the successful use of
cytogenetics, cross-matching techniques and molecular assays to
demonstrate that Anopheles funestus in Malawi is actually two separate
species. Their findings in this regard went on to be published in the
American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.
In addition to Profs Roux, Lall and Coetzee, the ACGT
partner institutions boast a number of other ‘South African Women in
Science’ Award recipients. Among them are Profs Aimee Stewart and
Lizette Koekemoer of Wits University; Prof Fhumulani Mulaudzi of
University of Pretoria, and; the CSIR’s Nadine van den Berg – who is
the proud recipient of a DST Masters Fellowship.
The DST ‘South African Women in Science’ Awards are held
annually as part of the Department’s Women’s Month celebrations and
presented by the Minister. The Awards are aimed at promoting women’s
access and excellence in research and innovation careers; profiling
women scientists and researchers as role models, and; encouraging and
rewarding younger women who are starting careers in science and
research.
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