Dr Romilla Maharaj
Executive Director, Department: Human and Infrastructure Capacity Development (HICD), National Research Foundation, South Africa.
Chair
Topic B: Learning from and overcoming gender disparities through research
Dr Maharaj currently holds the position of Executive Director Human and Infrastructure Capacity Development at the National Research Foundation (NRF). From April 2013 to August 2014 she held the position of Acting Executive Director for the South African Research Chairs Initiative and the DST-NRF Centres of Excellence. She has extensive research management experience having held Executive Management positions at the South African MRC and the HSRC prior to joining the NRF in 2006.
She obtained a PhD in Microbiology and an MBA from the University of Cape Town. She has held a postdoctoral Cancer Research Fellowship at the University of Cape Town Medical School and a postdoctoral Research Associate position at the University of Illinois in Chicago. In her academic role as a lecturer in the Department of Biochemisty at the former University of Natal, Faculty of Agriculture she developed and ran undergraduate and postgraduate training programmes in molecular biology, designed and established a molecular biology laboratory and mentored undergraduate and postgraduate students. She has served as a member of the Science, Engineering and Technology for Women (SET4W) sub-committee of the National Advisory Council on Innovation (NACI) and serves on several scientific Advisory Boards.