I have had a strong commitment to training and developing postgraduate students. They are from diverse fields; podiatry, chiropractic, anatomical sciences, archaeology, physical anthropology and education. I play a considerable role in facilitating the development of scientific writing and clear communication skills-vital for a successful career in research. Having entered the field of research later in life, I also play a role in mentoring and developing mature post-graduate students, being able to draw from personal experience. I encourage high standards of content and communication style from post-graduate students and believe that this is an important contribution to research development. Even though post-graduate supervision and teaching is not a primary focus in my position as University Curator, I personally feel very satisfied in the roles that I have played in developing a number of post-graduate student’s potential.

This course is taught to all BSc Palaeontology students at the Evolutionary Studies Institute. As contemporary humans, we are a product of our evolutionary past. That past can be directly observed through the study of the human fossil record, archaeological artefacts, comparative anatomical study and the DNA of living and extinct human populations. This course provides an overview of human evolutionary history from the last common ancestor with the living great apes to the present-contemporary human variation in a comparative context. Emphasis is placed on major evolutionary changes in the development of humans and the approaches used by paleoanthropologists and related investigators to develop that knowledge.
We then look at how the human lineage first began to be distinguished from apes, the rise and extinction of early hominin species, the origin and dispersal of the genus Homo, and the evolutionary changes associated with the development from hunter-gatherer lifestyles to agricultural practices in the past 200,000 years. 

University of Johannesburg (Department of Podiatry)

2005-2006        Regional Anatomy, lower limb (form & function, evolution & functional clinical anatomy)

1998-2006        Research project tutor (final year honours projects)

1995-2006        Clinical Studies IV (skin & nail  surgery, applied pharmacotherapeutics & clinical emergencies)

1989-2006        Clinical Studies III (biomechanics & radiology)

1995-2000         Podopaediatrics

1992-1995         Practice Management and Ethics

1989-1992         Podiatric Orthoses (theory & practical fabrication techniques)

1989-1995         Podiatric Medicine I (fundamentals of podiatry)