Dr Henriëtte van den Berg
Dr Henriëtte van den Berg has been involved with the professional and research training of postgraduate students for twenty-five years. As a counselling psychologist, her focus is the optimisation of human well-being and resilience, and she is currently working in two research domains, namely occupational health and well-being, and adolescent risk and resilience.

She has worked closely and productively over many years with postgraduate students in the Department of Psychology at the UFS, and this interest has brought her to the Postgraduate School, where she is responsible for managing its academic programmes. Henriëtte is busy with two chapters for a book on the status of research on well-being in South Africa. She has published articles in the South African Journal of Psychology, Industrial Psychology, and the Journal of Child and Adolescent Mental Health.

E: vdberghs@ufs.ac.za

Danila Liebenberg
Danila Liebenberg accepted service at the Postgraduate School on 1 January 2016. She is the Assistant Director for Research Development. She is currently busy with her PhD in Higher Education Studies.

E: liebenbergjd@ufs.ac.za

Joy Nogabe
Joy Nogabe joined the Postgraduate School in October 2011 as Chief Officer: Postgraduate Funding Opportunities. She is responsible for the management and marketing of postgraduate funding opportunities at the UFS. She provides strategic leadership on issues associated with postgraduate funding.

She has a BSc, BScHons and MMedSc, all from the UFS. She previously held the position as Research Officer: NRF Activities at the Central University of Technology’s Research Directorate, where she coordinated the NRF programmes on research funding and capacity-building. While working in this position, she realised the challenges facing postgraduate students’ funding and this stimulated her interest in assisting postgraduate students. Her aim is to assist as many students as possible with funding.

The biggest reward will be to secure as much financial assistance as possible for students from different funding agencies. Joy plans to obtain a Master’s in Business Administration in the near future.

E: nogabesj@ufs.ac.za

Alet Olivier
Alet Olivier is responsible for the writing development of postgraduate students. She presents lectures and workshops to postgraduate students on various aspects of academic writing and plagiarism. Since 2007, she has concerned herself in particular with the issue of student plagiarism.

Her MA (linguistics) deals with academic plagiarism from a pedagogical and policy approach. She regularly attends international plagiarism conferences to keep in touch with global issues of plagiarism in academia. She has a BA (Law), Hons, and MA from UFS, and an HED (postgrad) from Unisa. She is currently enrolled for her DPhil in applied linguistics.

Her passion is teaching and empowering students with writing skills and strategies in order to facilitate postgraduate students’ academic writing endeavours.

E: aolivier@ufs.ac.za

Naomi Haupt
Naomi Haupt joined the Postgraduate School at the end of 2012. From 2006 to 2012 she was part of UDRAW (Unit for the Development of Rhetorical and Academic Writing) at the UFS. Her current portfolio is Senior Officer: Policies and Processes, where she oversees and assists with the implementation of documentation, policy formulation, and procedures for the postgraduate student tracking portfolio.

She is currently busy with her Masters in Anthropology at the UFS.

E: devaldone@ufs.ac.za

Eleanor Nel
Eleanor Nel is the Office Manager of the Postgraduate School. Since 2016, she coordinates the Emerging Scholars Mentoring Programme and is responsible for the administration of the Research Supervision and Mid-Career Programme. In addition, she is responsible for the administration and reporting of the Staff Skills Development for the Research Capacity-building Programme and staff members of the Postgraduate School.

Eleanor completed her undergraduate degree in BCom Human Resources Management and her Honours Degree in BCom Industrial Psychology. She is currently busy with her master's degree.

E: nelep@ufs.ac.za

Cecilia Rabanye
Cecilia Rabanye came to the Postgraduate School from UDRAW (Unit for the Development of Rhetorical and Academic Writing). She is currently working as an assistant officer. Her responsibilities include logistical support for workshops, assisting the Chief Officer: Funding Opportunities and the rest of the Postgraduate school staff.

She is also studying for her BA degree and is eager to learn new things, especially the environment of working within the wide range of postgraduate activities.

E: rabanyemc@ufs.ac.za

Pinky Motlhabane
Pinky worked as a student assistant at the rector’s office in 2013, and then worked as intern at the Department of Human Resources in 2014. She joined the Postgraduate School as an assistant officer in February 2015, responsible for organising workshops, which involved administrative, operations, and research support.

Since mid-2016, Pinky has worked closely with Joy on matters of postgraduate funding opportunities. She obtained her undergraduate degree in social science, an honours degree in industrial psychology, and a postgraduate diploma in gender studies.

She is currently enrolled for her master's degree.

E: motlhabanegk@ufs.ac.za

Tshepiso Molaba
Tshepiso Molaba joined the Postgraduate School in June 2016 as a Senior Officer. She is responsible for coordinating the research capacity development programme, course advertising, and handling student inquiries regarding research training. She has a BSc and BScHons from UFS and an MSc from Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University. She worked as a laboratory assistant at the UFS in 2012, and then worked as a student researcher at CSIR from August 2013 to June 2016.  

She is hoping to pursue a PhD in the near future.

E: molabatp@ufs.ac.za

Katleho Nyaile
Katleho Nyaile is involved with the postgraduate student tracking and plays an oversight role in the Researcher Capacity Development Grant at the Postgraduate School. He is the current project leader of the local and national Three-minute Thesis competition founded by Queensland University in Australia and the manager of the research assistants at the Postgraduate School. He holds a BCom (Human Resource Management) and BSocSci Honours Psych, and is currently busy with his research master's in psychology. He also serves as the Vice-Chairperson and Postgraduate School Ex-officio in Postgraduate Student Council (PGSC) of the University of the Free State.

He is a member of the Southern African Research and Innovation Management Association (SARIMA) as well as the Postgraduate Forum Southern Africa (PGFSA).

E: nyailek@ufs.ac.za

Natalie Kowalik
Natalie Kowalik joined the Postgraduate School early in 2016. She is currently working in a Senior Officer position responsible for the marketing and communications at the Postgraduate School.

She is busy finishing off her PhD thesis in Social Science, Communication Studies at the University of Antwerp.

E: kowalikn@ufs.ac.za

Dr Emmie Smit
Dr Emmie Smit was appointed as a postdoctoral fellow at the Postgraduate School in 2013. She has completed postdoctoral studies (Aarhus University, Denmark), doctoral studies in Higher Education Studies (UFS), master’s studies in Drama and Theatre Arts Management (UFS), PGD in Arts and Cultural Management (Wits), and a National Diploma in Project Management (UFS). 

During the past decade at the UFS, she has lectured at the Department of Drama and Theatre Arts, Centre of Higher Education Studies and the School of Higher Education Studies, managed the Wynand Mouton Theatre on campus and administrated the accredited journal Perspectives in Education. Her fellowship is focused on researcher career development through mentoring programmes facilitated at the Postgraduate School.

E: emmiesmit.sa@gmail.com 

Nthabiseng Thateng
Nthabiseng Thateng is currently an assistant officer at the Postgraduate School, assisting both the Funding and Research Development Capacity portfolios. Nthabiseng first joined the school as a student assistant in May 2016. She also previously worked at the UFS Career Development Office. Her duties at the school include performing statistical analysis of workshop data and evaluation forms.

Nthabiseng holds an undergraduate degree in Mathematical Statistics and an honours degree in Statistics.

She is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Mathematical Statistics with specialization in Risk Analysis.

E: ThatengNG@ufs.ac.za