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Team members highlighted
during Women’s Month
September 2021
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| Four team members involved in the DSI/ARC Honeybush Project were featured
as part of an awareness campaign about women in South African science during
Women’s Month in August this year. The campaign was run on social media platforms such as Facebook
and Instagram by the Association of South African Women in Science and
Engineering, also known as SA WISE. The two project leaders at the Agricultural Research Council (ARC)
of the DSI/ARC Honeybush Project, Prof Lizette
Joubert and Dr Cecilia
Bester were among those featured. Prof Joubert is a principal researcher (Food
Science) at the ARC Infruitec–Nietvoorbij, and involved in product research and
agri-processing matters. She is also associated with Stellenbosch University as
an extraordinary professor in food science. Dr Bester is
involved in horticultural production research as a senior researcher in crop
development at the ARC
Infruitec-Nietvoorbij, and also helps to develop small-scale businesses in the
honeybush sector as part of the community development portfolio. It was also hat’s off to food sensory expert Ms Nina
Muller of Stellenbosch University’s Department of Food Science. She has
been collaborating with the ARC since 2010 on herbal tea research. This
collaboration has since resulted in more than 20 research papers. She recently
helped to organise workshops for the
honeybush industry on how to use a new sensory quality control guide (see
article in news section). The workshops as well as the compilation and printing
of the guide were made possible through support from the DSI/ARC Honeybush
project. The spotlight also fell on science communication expert Dr Marina
Joubert of Stellenbosch University’s Centre for Research on Evaluation, Science and Technology, who is
involved in the DSI/ARC Honeybush Project as media and communications advisor. |