‘Walking the journey with a student is extremely gratifying’

There are no half measures with Professor Marinda Oosthuizen. So it’s unsurprising to hear that her love for Boxer dogs extends to breeding litters, writing the newsletter for its council and being a judge at championship shows.  

“It’s nice to raise those puppies, but very difficult to let them go,” she says. “It’s like letting go of one of your PhDs or postdocs – I’d love to keep them, but I know I need to send them into the wide world to find themselves.”

This love of guiding students is the force that has nourished Prof Oosthuizen’s love of academia. Promoted to a full professor in veterinary molecular parasitology in 2016, she is now in her second term as Deputy Dean for Research and Postgraduate Studies in the Faculty of Veterinary Science at the University of Pretoria (UP). She says being on Onderstepoort campus “is the best thing ever” and is proud of being part of UP, which “is very close to my heart”. Yet for a long time, she was adamant that the world of academia was not for her.

“I never really knew what I wanted to be, but I knew what I didn’t want to be,” she says. “I didn’t want to be in a lab doing repetitive stuff. And I didn’t want to be in academia, because at the time, it involved standing in front of a class giving lectures.”

Prof Oosthuizen obtained a BSc in Agriculture, focusing on microbiology, after being inspired by her lecturer, Prof Eugene Cloete. Thereafter, she obtained one degree after another, thinking each would help her find where she’d want to be in life.

“I became like a professional student,” she says, modestly omitting that she graduated cum laude all the way through.

A few things helped Prof Oosthuizen find her niche, which turned out to be in academia after all. One was discovering the pleasures of supervising.

“Walking this journey with a student – to see them change and grow, to give them advice about anything in life they might need – is extremely gratifying,” she says. “That’s what I really enjoy – the person and the journey they’re on. I love the research, but the student is a stronger driver for me.”

After 17 years in postgraduate supervision and training, she believes that academic supervision goes beyond guiding students to complete their dissertations or theses.

“It’s about nurturing independent, well-rounded researchers who can think critically, innovate and drive their fields forward,” she says. “I take great pride in fostering an environment where students can thrive.”

Another discovery that helped Prof Oosthuizen realise that she belonged in academia was when she found she had a passion and aptitude for writing grants. This skill has enabled her to secure more than R20.2 million for her own research, including a five-year National Institutes of Health (NIH) award with Washington State University for her project on zoonotic tick-borne pathogens and acute febrile illness in rural South Africa. Diversifying and increasing research grant income is also an integral part of her responsibilities as Deputy Dean.

She’s been instrumental in securing more than €3.3m (about R68m) for the past two five-year cycles of a longstanding collaboration between the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Belgium, the School of Public Health at the University of the Western Cape, and UP’s Department of Veterinary Tropical Diseases. Prof Oosthuizen also recently secured NIH funding of more than $3.6 million (about R62m), on behalf of several UP faculties, to establish the Centre for Transformative Infectious Disease Research on Climate, Health and Equity in a Changing Environment, known as C-CHANGE.

Her expertise in writing successful grant proposals has extended to developing full proposals that gained UP Senate approval for the establishment of the faculty’s African Centre for Biosecurity and Disease Risk Assessment, as well as the transdisciplinary Hans Hoheisen Research Centre at the Orpen Gate entrance to Kruger Park, which happens to be the part of the country she cites as her favourite for relaxing, enjoying nature and taking photos of birds.

Because she only discovered these interests after completing her PhD, Prof Oosthuizen now shares the same message with the faculty’s postgraduate students each year: to keep testing the waters in different directions until they discover their true passion.

Prof Oosthuizen compares her love of writing grant proposals to her childhood love of playing with Lego. Inspired by her late father, Jan, a draughtsman who designed and built houses in his spare time, she remembers building her own Lego houses yet hardly ever playing with them afterwards.

“It’s much the same when writing proposals on behalf of a department or for multiple UP faculties at a time,” she says. “Once I secure the funding, I see it as the beginning of something bigger. I love laying the foundations and shaping the vision. As principal investigator, I carry the overall responsibility for the grant, but the joy lies in seeing the team bring that vision to life, while I walk alongside them to guide and support the journey.”

These seemingly behind-the-scenes endeavours don’t mask Prof Oosthuizen’s high profile as a researcher. She is rated C1 by the National Research Foundation, which recognises her as an established researcher with a high international standing.

Her research has taken her to almost all the continents, and she mentions particularly enjoying teaching bioinformatics in Wuhan, China. Travel, however, also reveals what she admits is, ironically, her one weakness: flying.

“I get terribly anxious,” she says. “But I really love to travel and experience other cultures. I always tell colleagues or students when we travel together that they’re welcome to sit next to me – just don’t expect a conversation, as I’ll already be fast asleep, thanks to the strong meds that get through the flight!”