Staff/Students

Prof Marietjie Venter (Head of Program)

M. Venter has a PhD(Medical Virology)(Wits)(2003) on Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) and postdoctoral training on West Nile virus from the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, USA(2003). She worked on respiratory and zoonotic arboviruses since 1999, first as medical scientist at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD)(1999-2005) before launching the Zoonoses Research program, department Medical Virology (UP) where she worked in joined appointments with the NHLS and NICD from (2006-2014) and US-CDC (2014-2016). From 2009-2014, she was co-director, Centre for Respiratory Diseases and Meningitis, NICD and Director of the National Influenza Centre and from  (2014-2016), One Health and Emerging Disease Program director, Global Disease Detection Centre, US-CDC South Africa. In 2016 she accepted a full-time position as full Professor (Medical Virology) to head the Emerging Arbo & Respiratory Virus research program in the Centre for Viral Zoonoses. She has >110 publications in ISI accredited journals in this field and won the National Science and Technology Forum (NSTF) award in the category "Best output by a senior scientist over 5-10y in SA" in 2013. She is an advisor to WHO on Respiratory Syncytial Virus and Influenza pandemic preparedness and on the Scientific Advisory board for the Global One Health Platform.