Prof Sandy-Lynn Steenhuisen, Associate Professor in the Department of Plant Sciences on the University of the Free State Qwaqwa Campus, was awarded the DSTI/NRF SARChI Chair in Trophic Ecology in April 2026. Her appointment reflects national recognition of her pioneering research in mountain ecology and strengthens South Africa’s National System of Innovation by expanding equitable research capacity and excellence.

Her research focuses on plant–animal interactions and how these relationships shift under environmental change, including the impact of invasive alien plants and climate change. She has collaboratively uncovered unexpected ecological relationships, such as lizard pollination and microbial communities in nectar, and her work on floral scent, colour, and nectar explores how pollinators are attracted or deterred. She supervises a variety of studies on the impact of invasive alien plant species in South Africa’s Grassland Biome, primarily with the Centre for Biological Control at Rhodes University. Insights from this research have direct implications for conservation, biodiversity management, and community livelihoods in montane grasslands.

Prof Steenhuisen leads the Qwaqwa Plant-Animal Interactions Research (Q-PAIR) team and the INTERACT project, which brings together international teams to study ecological interactions across mountain systems in Southern Africa. In partnership with the UFS Afromontane Research Unit, her work positions the Qwaqwa Campus and South Africa as global leaders in mountain ecology research. She holds a C2-NRF rating, is on the editorial boards of the South African Journal of Botany and the American Journal of Botany, and she serves on the executive council of the South African Association of Botanists. She was a finalist in the 2023/2024 NSTF-South32 Awards in the Green Economy category, and is a product of Prof Steven Johnson’s DSTI/NRF SARChI Chair in Evolutionary Biology at UKZN, a Claude-Leon Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship, and an NRF Research Career Advancement Fellowship at UCT, and continues to be mentored as part of the first cohort of the DHET Future Professors Programme. Having graduated 16 master’s and 5 doctoral candidates, she is deeply committed to postgraduate training, encouraging students to see their contributions within a broader ecological and societal context.