Professor Teresa Coutinho was educated at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, where she completed a one year post-doctoral fellowship before taking up a position at the National Research Foundation in 1991.

In 1993, she joined Mike Wingfield’s group at the University of the Free State as a post-doctoral researcher. In 1998 she joined the Forestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute (FABI) and Department of Microbiology and Plant Pathology at the University of Pretoria, as a Senior Lecturer. She was promoted to full Professor in 2003. Teresa has an NRF B3 rating, has published in excess of 125 research papers and has an H-index of 36 (Scopus).