Anél du Plessis is Professor of Law and Acting Director: Research at the North-West University (NWU).  Her scholarship focuses on the nexus area of environmental-, local government and different aspects of human rights law and city governance. She is editor of the first and still only extensive volume on South African environmental and local government law. She has published widely and supervised more than 40 post-graduate students and post-doctoral scholars in these areas. She coordinates the NWU's LLM Programme in Environmental Law and Governance since 2015.