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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.
British Academic visits UFS
2011-04-14
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Dr Wayne Dooling
Photo: Gerda-Marie Viviers |
Dr Wayne Dooling , a senior lecturer at the University of London in the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), gave a lecture at the University of the Free State (UFS) on Tuesday. This lecture was presented in conjunction with the UFS’s Department of History. The lecture was on violence and Colonial Law in Southern Africa. “Dutch law was characterised by force and violence,” said Dr Dooling in his introduction of the topic.
In his lecture Dr Dooling spoke about how Colonial Law worked and how the African legal systems were suppressed by European Law. “One of the biggest achievements European Governments sought was to get African societies and Africans to come around to European ways of wrongdoing,” said Dr Dooling . He said that African courts did not just disappear; they continued to exist. The reason for Africans to use and rely on European courts was that they were dissatisfied with their own courts. African laws were not fixed; they benefited only a few and were often violated.
Dr Dooling is currently an Associate Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the SOAS. He has authored two books, namely: Slavery, emancipation and Colonial rule in South Africa and Law and community in a slave society.
14 April 2011