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08 May 2024
Photo SUPPLIED
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.
Lecturer advises Sudanese government
2009-02-12
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Mr Andries Jordaan and a Sudanese farmer during his recent visit to that country.
Photo: Supplied |
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Mr Andries Jordaan, Director of the Disaster Management Training and Education Centre for Africa (DiMTeC) at the University of the Free State (UFS), recently visited Sudan to conduct an environmental impact study next to the Blue Nile and Dinder rivers, west of Ethiopia. The Sudanese government is in an advanced stage of implementing a new irrigation scheme of 1 million hectare in this area.
As part of this study he conducted research on the current indigenous drought strategies of farmers in order to make recommendations on how they can effectively overcome the dry months (stretching from September to April).
He was part of the team who last year planned and monitored the resettlement of 70 000 people during the building of the Merowe Dam in the Nile River in northern Sudan. Mr Jordaan is contracted as agricultural specialist by Lahmeyer International, a German engineering company.
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