The Transformation of the Professoriate Programme is pleased to announce the promotion of five members to associate professoriate level. They are Profs Gladys Kigozi, Deidre van Rooyen, Frikkie Maré, Lodewyk Sutton, and Henco van der Westhuizen.
From the left: Prof Deidre van Rooyen, Prof Frikkie Maré, and Prof Gladys Kigozi. (Prof Lodewyk Sutton and Prof Henco van der Westhuizen were absent when the photo was taken)
Prof Gladys Kigozi joined the Centre for Health Systems Research & Development in 2007. In 2011, she obtained a PhD with a thesis on Facilitating factors and barriers to the uptake of HIV testing among TB patients in the Free State Province. She has been working in the field of tuberculosis (TB) and HIV/Aids since 2007. She seeks to understand the structural and socio-behavioural dimensions of (integrated) TB and HIV/Aids management and to monitor the implementation of TB and HIV-related policies in public health-care facilities and communities. Other areas of interest include occupational health, human resources for health, and mental health. Dr Kigozi has participated in several basic, operational, and intervention research projects. She has disseminated her work at more than 40 conferences locally and internationally and published 39 peer-reviewed journal articles in national and international journals. Currently, she is leading a project to explore the experiences of common mental disorders in patients receiving TB treatment. The project is funded by both the National Research Foundation and the South African Medical Research Council. She is also a co-researcher on three COVID-19-related projects with experts from the University of the Free State, the Free State Department of Health, and the World Health Organisation.
Prof Deidré van Rooyen works as a senior researcher in the Centre for Development Support and serves as Programme Director for the Development Studies Programme. She completed her PhD in Development Studies (Civic culture and local economic development in a small town) in 2012, followed by a certificate course in Social Entrepreneurship at the Gordon Institute of Business Studies (University of Pretoria) in 2014. She has supervised several master’s and PHD students on diverse topics, authored and co-authored numerous research reports, and published widely in peer-reviewed conference proceedings, journals, and books (13 chapters). In 2018, Dr Van Rooyen co-edited her first book through Routledge Publishers, titled Mining and Community in South Africa: From Small Town to Iron Town, and in 2021, she co-edited two more books – Coal and Energy in South Africa: Considering a Just Transition, published by Edinburgh University Press, and Mining and Community in the South African Platinum Belt: A decade after Marikana, published by Nova Publishers. Furthermore, she obtained a Y2 National Research Foundation rating as a researcher in 2018. Her research specialisation fields are social entrepreneurship (SE) and local economic development (LED) in small towns.
Prof Frikkie Maré completed his PhD in Agricultural Economics in 2018 and currently serves as Academic Head of the Department of Agricultural Economics. He has extensive knowledge of the livestock industry and the red meat market. His research centres mainly around the livestock industry, with a focus on beef and sheep production and feedlot economics, price transmission in the red meat value chain, and water footprint analysis of red meat. He is also the Editor of Veeplaas (an agricultural magazine) and serves on a number of committees and councils, both nationally and internationally. He has published 23 peer-reviewed articles, presented 14 papers at international scientific conferences and another eight at national conferences. He has successfully supervised ten master’s and two PhD students. He is also very active as a columnist in popular agricultural media and writes approximately 40 articles per year for magazines such as Veeplaas, Stockfarm, and Landbouweekblad. He is involved in weekly radio interviews (OFM, RSG) and produces 100 market reports and two interviews per year for televisions programmes. He has further acted as an invited speaker at more than 50 agricultural producer congresses, conferences, annual meetings, and farmers’ days.
Prof Lodewyk Sutton completed his LLB degree at UNISA and became a qualified advocate. In 2007, he started Theological studies at the University of Pretoria, where he obtained his BTh, BA Honours in Ancient Languages and Cultures, and MDiv degrees, all with distinction. In 2014, his MTh degree was upgraded to the PhD programme, resulting in him being the first Theological student at the University of Pretoria to have his MTh upgraded to a doctorate. In 2015, he obtained his PhD in Old Testament Studies with a thesis titled A trilogy of war and renewed honour? Psalms 108, 109 and 110 as a literary composition. He was a research fellow in the Department of Old Testament Studies (Faculty of Theology) at the University of Pretoria until the end of 2017. He was appointed in the Department of Old and New Testament Studies within the Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of the Free State in 2018 and currently serves as Head of the Department. He completed an MA in Semitic languages in the Department of Ancient Languages and Cultures (Faculty of Humanities, UP) in 2019. He also served as a minister in the Dutch Reformed Church Lyttelton East for more than five years and is still an ordained minister in the Dutch Reformed Church. His field of research is the book of Psalms in the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible and Christian Bible). In the Psalms, he researches Psalms from the perspectives of ‘literary space’ (narrative space or theory, social space, and ancient Near Eastern spatial orientation), ‘body’ (anthropology in the Old Testament), and ‘war’ (imagery and language) to indicate the relation between Psalms, called the ‘shape and shaping of the Psalter’ (part of the Canonical‐criticism method).
Prof Henco van der Westhuizen completed his PhD in Systematic Theology at Stellenbosch University in 2014. His research interests focus on the intersections between pneumatology, philosophy, and public theology. After completing a monograph on the intersection of pneumatology and public theology, he is exploring the intersections of pneumatology and philosophy – more particularly the intersections between theologies of Spirit and language, hermeneutics, phenomenology, existentialism, and deconstruction. During 2021, Prof Van der Westhuizen authored the book, Faith Active in Love: On the Theology of Michael Welker, published by Peter Lang in Berlin. He also served as editor of the forthcoming book, Letters to a Young Theologian, published by Fortress Press in Minneapolis.