The University of Pretoria (UP) is pleased to announce the appointment of Professor Alta van der Merwe as Deputy Dean: Teaching and Learning in the Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology (EBIT) with effect from 1 August 2016.

Professor Van der Merwe is currently a professor in and Head of the Department of Informatics at UP. She previously held leadership positions as senior lecturer and associate professor at UP and principal researcher at the CSIR's Meraka Institute.

She obtained a PhD in Computer Science at UP, an MSc and a BSc Honours in Computer Science at North-West University and a BSc in Computer Science at the University of Johannesburg.

Professor Van der Merwe has been involved in various aspects of teaching and research for the past 28 years, including the design of an Enterprise Architecture (EA) course for honours students at Unisa. This course was one of the first EA courses at honours level to be presented at an academic institution in South Africa. Her passion is to introduce young learners to science and she served as chairperson of the adjudication panel of the Northern Gauteng Expo until 2013, adjudicating on average 500 projects per year.

Professor Van der Merwe holds a C1 rating from the NRF.

She has supervised a number of master's and doctoral students to completion of their studies. She has published book chapters and in peer-reviewed journals.

The University would like to congratulate Professor Van der Merwe on her appointment and wish her well in her future career as Deputy Dean: Teaching and Learning in the Faculty of EBIT and as a member of the University's senior management team.