My vision for the future of research at UP and how I will contribute to this development
The University of Pretoria has set for itself strong objectives and notably to become a leading research intensive university to increase its visibility and profile at the international level and in fine lead on the African continent. Consequently, it really seems that the future of Science at UP is bright, which definitely constitutes a great incentive to pursue my research career at UP as I also have set for myself strong objectives. In a close future, I definitely intend to become a world leading expert in hot desert microbial ecology and thus lead a research group in that field and to participate in the training and lecturing of young South African UP students. In parallel, I have begun with a colleague a project aiming to develop the first ancient DNA laboratory facility of the African continent. While this is highly challenging, I am confident that once set-up this facility will definitely lead to the development of a new and original research niche at the African scale but situated at UP.