Thirteen undergraduate students will get their first taste of life as researchers as mentees in the DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Tree Health Biotechnology’s undergraduate mentorship programme. The students met their mentors – postgraduate students and postdoctoral fellows – at a lunch in the FABI courtyard on 4 March. The incumbents go through a vigorous selection process to get into the programme, which runs from March until November every year. The students learn about basic lab etiquette as well as techniques that are central to postgraduate scientific research, preparing them for when they conduct their individual research studies from Honours until PhD level. 

Professor Brenda Wingfield welcomed the 13 mentees and congratulated them for successfully going through the selection process of the programme, which she said had “become incredibly competitive” over the years. She encouraged them to put in “energy and effort” into their partnerships with their mentors and to enjoy the excitement of doing research that “no one has done before”. Programme co-ordinator Benedicta Swalarsk-Parry gave the mentees their welcome packs, which included lab coats and lab books. 

 The mentors and their mentees are listed below: 

• Dr Vuyiswa Bushula-Njah and Luka van Wyk
• Firehiwot Eshetu and Micaela Schagen 
• Dr Mesfin Gossa and Lesego Malekana 
• Ginna Granados and Melandre van Lili
• Darryl Herron and Nhlanhla Simelane 
• Angel Maduke and Sheldon Viviers 
• Dr Esther Muema and Damian vaz de Soussa
• Mohamad Sayari and Jireh Janse van Rensburg 
• Dr Michelle Schroder and Marizanne Jones 
• Carol-Ann Segal and Sizwe Tshabalala 
• Hannes Strydom and Jade Tulloch
• Benedicta Swalarsk-Parry and Ropafadzai Jaw
• Dr Markus Wilken, Frances Lane and Nomaswazi Masekowill mentor Deanne du Plessis