Dr Grietjie Haupt was promoted to Senior-Lecturer in the Department of Science, Mathematics and Technology Education. She is recognised as an expert and innovative teacher. Since her appointment in the Faculty in 2002 she was required to design and develop a completely new curriculum for the newly introduced school subject Design and Technology Education. This endeavour necessitated many years of research into the ontology and epistemology of design as well as technology, which included the completion of her MEd degree in 2005. It resulted in the design of multiple models as teaching and learning tools, as well as the publication of one article discussed further on. Stemming from her dissertation, her interest in the design process in the classroom, her focus sharpened and she started reading widely and deeply in the ontology of problem solving, in particular in systems thinking and design cognition in order to develop appropriate epistemologies and methodologies for this new field.

Of particular significance is that Dr Haupt was invited by Prof Marc de Vries, world-renowned expert in Design and Technology education and co-supervisor of her PhD, to contribute a chapter in another scholarly book, the International Handbook on Technology Education, to be released in November, 2017. This accolade is testimony to Dr Haupt’s internationally acknowledged expertise as a researcher in her field. She has also published chapters in several scholarly books - one about teaching in culture-rich classrooms (2015) and another about the use of cognitive tools in problem solving (2015). Dr Haupt’s research scholarship is testimony of her ability to integrate philosophical relevance, depth of research into generic professional and domain specific design practice with curriculum design and with teaching scholarship, which stems from a slow, but deep and wide study of the field of problem solving, systems thinking and design cognition.