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08 May 2024
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The Dean of the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, Prof Paul Oberholster, has the pleasure of inviting you to the inaugural lecture of Prof Dirk Opperman.
Date: 21 May 2024
Time: 17:30
Venue: Equitas
Click here to RSVP before Wednesday, 15 May 2024. Alternatively, contact Christelle van Rooyen on +27 51 401 9190.
About Prof Dirk Opperman
Prof Dirk Opperman obtained his PhD in Biochemistry at the University of the Free State in 2008. This was followed by postdoctoral research on directed evolution with Prof Manfred T Reetz at the Max Planck Institute for Coal Research (Germany). In 2010, he was appointed in the Department of Microbiology and Biochemistry. He subsequently established structural biology at the UFS, and his current research focus lies at the interface of evolutionary and structure-function relationships of biocatalysts, and their application in green chemistry. He is an NRF B-rated researcher with co-authored papers in Science, Nature Communications, and Angewandte Chemie.
His research has been funded by both local and international organisations, ranging from industries such as SASOL to the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF, UK). He has a long-standing collaboration with researchers at the Delft University of Technology (TUDelft, the Netherlands) and is currently part of a European Research Area Network Cofund (ERA-NET Cofund) partnership on Food Systems and Climate (FOSC) that develops biocatalysts for upcycling waste.
Rev Jaftha heads interim steering committee on community engagement
2008-11-20
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| The group that attended the first meeting of the proposed National Community Engagement Managers’ Forum. |
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Delegates, representing 13 higher educations institutions (HEIs) across South Africa, attended the first meeting of the proposed National Community Engagement Managers’ Forum in Stellenbosch.
Prof. Julian Smith, Vice-Rector: Community Interaction and Personnel of the Stellenbosch University (SU) delivered the keynote address “Consolidating community engagement at South African universities”. In his address he referred to the following: particularities of managing community service (CS) at HEIs, general management areas applicable to CS, the international and national impulses that pertain to CS, concepts and terminology and the lessons learnt, particularly in the case of SU.
Prof. Priscilla Daniels delivered a presentation on the Community-Higher Education-Services-Partnership (CHESP) initiative of the Joint Education Trust (JET) Education Services, as an important intervention in South African universities to support service-learning over the past ten years. Delegates had an opportunity to share their approaches to community service and community service learning as well as their challenges.
Steps were taken towards the establishment of a national forum for Community Engagement Managers. Issues that were discussed were the purpose, strategy, structure, relationship to other national and international structures as well as funding for community engagement initiatives at HEIs.
An interim steering committee, with Rev Kiepie Jaftha, Chief Director Community Service at the University of the Free State (UFS) as the convener, was elected to take the process further. The next meeting of the forum will be held at the UFS towards the end of March 2009.
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