Nationality: South African

Institution: University of the Witwatersrand

Department: Geosciences and Evolutionary Studies Institute

PAST programme support: Degree support

Research title: Testing Evolutionary Models of Survival and Recovery from the End-Permian Mass Extinction Event in South Africa’s Karoo Basin

I’m a qualified research scientist and a PhD candidate at the School of Geosciences and Evolutionary Studies Institute.

I obtained a BSc in Biological Sciences degree at the University of the Witwatersrand in 2018 and presented my 3rd year laboratory project at the GeoCongress 2018 Conference as a poster, being the only undergraduate presenting at the conference. I was based at the Evolutionary Studies Institute for my honour’s and master’s degrees. I developed a suite of skills and formed multi-disciplinary collaborations in order to conduct research on the ecological roles, locomotory habits and taxonomy of Permian and Triassic species, the use of statistical applications i.e., R studio, Mesquite, Image J to quantify body size, data collection (I have collected data for my 3rd year laboratory project at Iziko South African Museum, Cape Town) and generated conference proceedings (including YeboGogga for my honour’s research and the Society of Vertebrate Palaeontology for my master’s).