Page 108 - University of Pretoria Research Review 2017

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A-Rated Scientists
NIGEL C BENNETT
Professor Bennett’s research investigates the ecological and physiological factors that affect the control of reproduction and the evolution of sociality. Molecular approaches, together with innovative laboratory and field methods, are used to unravel the mechanisms by which evolution can shape change in socially occurring vertebrate species. The family Bathyergidae has turned out to be an ideal model group for investigating the evolution of sociality and, as a consequence, contributes to the interdisciplinary efforts in the study of the causes and consequences of sociality. Professor Bennett was made a Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences, and in 2017 was awarded the Chancellor’s medal for research.
Professor Bennett is in the Department of Zoology and Entomology and holds the UP Austin Roberts Chair of African Mammalogy and the SARChI Chair of Mammalian Behavioural Ecology and Physiology.
DRUCILLA LC CORNELL
Professor Cornell’s work has looked at areas such as ethical humanism aimed at reviving black existentialism and radical constitutionalism to counter dominating historicism, imperialism and neo-colonialism. She has also researched female and racial subordination and liberalism post 9/11, particularly in the face of wars in regions such as Afghanistan and Iraq. She founded the uBuntu Project in 2003 in the Western Cape, a project that promotes the status and importance of indigenous values and ideals across various areas of society. Her most recent work is on the contribution of African socialism to debates about economic justice.
Professor Cornell is Extraordinary Professor in the Department of Jurisprudence at UP and Distinguished Professor in Political Science at Rutgers University, US.
DON A COWAN
Professor Cowan has a primary interest in the microbial ecology of soil habitats, including hot and cold desert soils. For the past decade and a half he has worked at both ends of the biological temperature scale, studying psychrophilic microbiology of the Dry Valleys of Eastern Antarctica, and the thermophilic microbiology of the Namib Desert. He collaborates with local, national and international researchers on many other metagenomic projects, ranging from studies of the roles of microbial communities in agricultural crop productivity, to assessing the microbial ecology of soils from sub-Antarctic islands. His newest research programme is the development of a large consortium of researchers to undertake a landscape-scale survey (for the first time) of the microbial diversity of sub-Saharan African soils. With two other members of his research team, Pedro Lebre and Pieter De Maayer, Professor Cowan published a review in the prestigious international journal Nature Reviews Microbiology.
Professor Cowan is Director of the Centre for Microbial Ecology and Genomics, and of the Genomics Research Institute in the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences.
PEDRO CROUS
As a phytomycologist Professor Crous’ main interest lies in the evolution and phylogeny of plant pathogenic fungi, especially those related to food crops. Understanding and defining species means that the importance of sex (recombination) cannot be ignored. His research has shown that many plant pathogens have both mating type genes, and may be having cryptic sex, which also has serious implications for disease control and rates of evolution. He is interested in intra- and interspecies variation, and how this relates to host specificity and speciation. Professor Crous actively pursues integrating DNA data with morphology and ecology. He is included in the list of highest cited researchers (Plant and Animal Science) by Thomson Reuters.
Professor Crous is an Associate Professor in FABI, linked to the DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Tree Health Biotechnology and the Tree Protection Co-operative Programme. He is Director of the Westerdijk Fungal Biodiversity Institute in Utrecht, The Netherlands.
ERIKA DE WET
Professor De Wet’s research examines the legal consequences that the exercising of public power by international organisations such as the United Nations and the African Union have for states and for those living in their territories. This includes the problems states face in implementing binding decisions of international organisations while giving due effect to other international obligations and constitutional principles of fundamental importance. She has held a number of national and international editorial positions and is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for Development Policy of the Max Planck Foundation for International Peace and the Rule of Law, as well as
of the General Council of the International Society of Public Law, and is an Honorary Professor in the Faculty of Law at Bonn University. Professor De Wet has been awarded a German Academic Exchange Service scholarship which she will spend at Bonn University to work on a monograph, ‘Intervention by Invitation and the Use of Force’ under contract with Oxford University Press.
Professor de Wet is Professor of International Law in the Faculty of Law and holds the DST-NRF SARChI Chair in International Constitutional Law.