Twelve undergraduate students will gain hands-on experience in research laboratories as mentees in the CPHB Mentorship programme for 2023. The DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence in Tree Health Biotechnology (CPHB) has run the Mentorship programme since 2005 with a focus on preparing undergraduate students to pursue postgraduate studies while also exposing these students to Plant Health. This is the first year since the COVID-19 pandemic that the programme has welcomed new mentees. The mentees were welcomed into the programme by Prof. Brenda Wingfield and Prof. Martin Coetzee at a meet-and-greet function on 3 April. The students got to meet their mentors, while Prof. Wingfield encouraged them to engage with the research activities in the program while maintaining their academic aptitude. Prof. Wingfield also thanked the mentors for their willingness to impart valuable skills to their mentees. The mentorship program will run for the remainder of 2023.

The new mentees are: Freddie Botha, Celia Coetzee, Matthew Cosser, Levern Cronje, Natalie Kapsosideris, Bianke Marx, JJ Nelson, Annabel Norval, Michané Reutener, Tolu Soogun, Lizaan Taljaard and Kiara van Eck.