The Chancellor's Award for Research is awarded annually to a maximum of two staff members at the professorial rank that have performed exceptionally in terms of research output and the standing of their research internationally. Prof Wingfield’s research interests include fungal population genetics and fungal phylogenetics. In addition to her internationally recognised research programme on the molecular phylogeny and taxonomy of tree pathogenic fungi, she is now developing a fungal genomics programme. Her research team has just completed sequencing the genome of an important pine pathogen and is in the process of annotating this sequence. This is a first for Africa.

Prof Wingfield has published more than 240 peer-reviewed articles. She is one of the Research Leaders of the Department of Science and Technology (DST)/NRF Centre of Excellence in Tree Health Biotechnology, Chairperson of the National Science and Technology Forum (NSTF), and previous Vice-Chairperson of the Board of Trustees of PlantBio, one of the national biotechnology innovation centres. She was the winner of the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry’s Women in Water, Sanitation, and Forestry Research Award in 2007, the DST’s Distinguished Women in Science Award in 2008, and the African Union’s Women in Science Regional (Southern) Award in 2009.

Prior to this award, she has been recognised four times as an Exceptional Academic Achiever. She has a B rating from the NRF.

The University honours its academic achievers and researchers to recognise their commitment to quality education and research. The awards were presented to more than 60 researchers in four categories: Chancellor's Award in the Category Research, Exceptional Academic Achievers, Exceptional Young Researchers and the NRF-rated Researchers.