Research with impact ─ this is what the North-West University (NWU) is renowned for. The university’s researchers continue to shine nationally and internationally. This was again evident at the recent 2024 National Research Foundation (NRF) awards, where a young NWU researcher was honoured in the Early Career/Emerging Researchers category.
Dr Hannes Erasmus of the NWU’s School of Biological Sciences is one of seven recipients of the awards in the Early Career/Emerging Researchers category. The awards ceremony took place in Sun City on 22 August. Each recipient of these coveted awards is selected from a different scientific discipline or field of research. Hannes’s expertise is in environmental sciences and management.
“I am really honoured and privileged to be the recipient of this prestigious award. Since the start of my scientific career, I have always admired the scientists who received these NRF awards and thought these are the best scientists representing our country and making it a better place. I never could imagine that I would be one of the recipients, especially not at this early stage in my career.”
Hannes says he views this award as validation that hard work pays off. “It is also confirmation that you need to continue with your research because you might not always see the bigger picture, but you are making a change and helping to build a better future for South Africa. I also believe that this award is the game changer that will create several new opportunities that I could not even imagine.”
He says the award would not have been possible without the various opportunities that the NWU, the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, the Unit for Environmental Sciences and Management (UESM), as well as the Water Research Group (WRG), have provided him with.
“I started as an undergraduate student and grew until I received a postdoctoral research fellowship at the NWU, working with state-of-the-art facilities, enthusiastic lecturers and a great community. The mentorship I received from world-class researchers at the NWU and the opportunity to have international collaborations and exposure provided me with the platform to establish myself as a researcher. I think the breakthrough is the culture that we are raised in to have an interdisciplinary approach to environmentally relevant issues (especially the effects of mining activities on aquatic ecosystems, on which my research is focusing), the various outputs and platforms to present our research to the scientific community on a national and international level, as well as the opportunity to work with a research team of internationally recognised leaders in their field.”
Investigating the effects of mining on freshwater systems
As a researcher concerned with aquatic ecotoxicology, Hannes has always been intrigued by how contamination affects water ecosystems, and especially by the effects of mining activities on these aquatic environments and the organisms living in them.
Since starting his research he has focused on, among other things, the effects of gold mining activities on freshwater systems. Hannes also looked at the effects of platinum and assessed the exposure to and effects of mercury on aquatic ecosystems across South Africa.
He is also concerned about how mercury is entering water ecosystems and how it affects them.
This research was funded as a scarce-skills postdoctoral fellowship by the NRF for 2022 to 2023.
Hannes has published 15 peer-reviewed articles in high-impact journals over the course of eight years.
He was recently appointed as an assistant professor in the One Health Research Center at Hokkaido University in Japan, where he is working from mid-July to mid-November this year. He lectures under- and postgraduate modules on topics in environmental toxicology and One Health to students in the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine. He will also be part of the Joint Summer Camp on “Connecting Asia for a Sustainable Future”.
To read more about the awards, visit: https://www.nrf.ac.za/about-us/nrf-awards/ or to view the livestream visit: https://www.youtube.com/live/PsFzWB_nA00?si=qkWOmHalQqTCNecM&t=4438
Dr Hannes Erasmus from the NWU’s School of Biological Sciences received a prestigious NRF award in the Early Career/Emerging Researchers category.
Hannes Erasmus is currently in Japan at the University of Hokkaido. His wife, Dr Anja Erasmus, received the award on his behalf during the prestigious event, which was held in Sun City on 22 August. With Anja is Rose Kgantsi, senior manager of the NWU’s Research Support.
