I am a Biochemist studying the role of progestins in women's health and disease, with a focus on cell signalling, steroid biosynthesis and metabolism, and the biochemistry of steroid receptors in gene regulation.

I am a groundwater scientist and university lecturer whose work integrates numerical modelling, isotope hydrogeology, and field-based investigations to solve applied water problems in southern Africa. My research focuses on groundwater system characterisation, contaminant transport, recharge processes, and groundwater age, with a growing emphasis on tracer-integrated numerical modelling. Alongside research, I teach core modules in hydrogeology, environmental isotopes, and field methods; supervise MSc and PhD candidates; and contribute to programme development. I engage extensively with industry through consulting and professional training, including serving as an official FEFLOW trainer in Africa, and hold leadership roles on the GWD-GSSA and IAH-SA executive committees.

My broad career path was settled when I was just a toddler…  While other children played cops and robbers, I upended rocks, adamant that I would become an entomologist and not a policeman.  But my world was upended in my second year of university when the inspiring UCT botanists (Jeremy Midgley, William Bond and Peter Linder) hijacked my mind with the wonders of plants.  Their brand of hypothesis-driven field science excited me and profoundly influenced how I teach and conduct research.  They taught me to be critical, creative and questioning, and demonstrated how science can be a source of mental and physical adventure. My first love is the field, observing organisms in their natural environments, inventing hypotheses and testing them by means of experiments. I am driven by the desire to understand why organisms look the way they do, and how they are adapted to their biotic and abiotic environments. Studying pollination biology, herbivory and seed dispersal, I get to delve into the interactions between plants, insects and other animals, daily exploring a world even more intricate and complex than the one imagined by my three-year-old self.

I am an associate professor of organic chemistry at the University of Stellenbosch.

Prof. George Azzopardi is an Extraordinary Professor at Stellenbosch University and Associate Professor at the University of Groningen. His research focuses on fundamental pattern recognition methods inspired by brain mechanisms, aiming to achieve more with less while ensuring high societal impact. He works at the intersection of pattern recognition, computer vision, machine learning, and computational neuroscience, developing models that are efficient, robust, and biologically motivated.

He leads the PRISMA research team (Pattern Recognition with and for Impact: Signals, Models and Applications) , which currently consists of 6 PhD students and a postdoc. Prof. Azzopardi has published more than 100 peer-reviewed papers and co-promoted 9 PhD students.

Azzopardi is co-recipient of the Ben Feringa Impact Award (2023) and the ENLIGHT Impact Award (2024). He serves as Associate Editor of Pattern Recognition and is an active member of CoRE-AI, an African-European Cluster of Research Excellence dedicated to advancing AI and computational thinking to address global societal challenges. His work bridges fundamental research with real-world impact, contributing to safer healthcare, forensic reliability, and improved decision-making systems.

Principle investigator, and research leader on Antimicrobial peptides. Specifically those produced by bacteria, named bacteriocins. Extensive collaborative work in various fields wiithin the biologicalsciences, including: Food sciences; Medical Biochemistry; Chemical Engineering; Microbiology; Plantpathology and Zoology/Plant sciences.