The University of Pretoria (UP) is pleased to announce the appointment of Professor Jan Eloff as Deputy Dean: Research and Postgraduate Studies in the Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology (EBIT) with effect from 1 August 2016.

Professor Eloff is currently a professor in Computer Science at UP. He previously held leadership positions as Research Director for SAP Research in Africa, Chairperson of the School of Information Technology, member of the Steering Committee of the IT CoachLab at the Innovation Hub and Head of the Department of Computer Science at UP. He is working towards the establishment of a big data science institute at UP.

He obtained the degrees PhD, MSc and BSc Honours in Computer Science, and a BSc in Computer Science and Mathematics at the Rand Afrikaans University (now the University of Johannesburg).

Professor Eloff's main focus is on research, innovation and productisation. A number of innovative software prototypes have been developed for industry under his leadership. He is the co-inventor of a number of patents registered in the USA. He is an associate editor of the world-renowned journal Computers & Security and serves on the editorial panel for the Computer Fraud & Security Bulletin, both of which are published by Elsevier.

He holds a B rating from the NRF and is recognised as an international researcher.

He has supervised a number of master's and doctoral students to completion of their studies and has published extensively, producing both book chapters and articles in peer-reviewed journals, nationally and internationally.

The University congratulates Professor Eloff on his appointment and wish him well in his future career as Deputy Dean: Research and Postgraduate Studies in the Faculty of EBIT and as a member of the University's senior management team.