Top African honours for local researcher
Koekemoer began her scientific career in mosquito vector control after graduating with a BSc Honours in 1995.
Wits University entomologist research professor, Lizette Koekemoer, is the latest recipient of the African Union Kwame Nkrumah Award for Scientific Excellence.
The university announced the news on 13 May, congratulating Koekemoer and the work she has done with the Wits Research Institute for Malaria (WRIM).
She received the award in recognition of her contribution to the field of malaria vector control. The co-director of WRIM was named the regional winner at a ceremony during the summit of heads of state and government in Addis Ababa.
Koekemoer began her scientific career in mosquito vector control after graduating with a BSc Honours in 1995. A vector refers to an organism that transmits infection, as mosquitos infected with parasites transmit malaria to people.
Koekemoer was the lead author for the first time when she published her PhD in 1998, for which she received the Watkins-Pitchford Prize for Best Publication by a Young Researcher at the South African Institute for Medical Research.
Since then, Koekemoer has published 108 papers and has supported malaria control programmes across South Africa’s provinces. She has also provided in-country support of malaria control programmes in Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Malawi, Nigeria, and Namibia.
Most recently, in April 2020, she co-authored a paper published in The Lancet, which showed how smart interventions in a unique trial in Namibia reduced malaria transmission by 75 per cent. In 2011, Koekemoer was named second runner-up in the category Distinguished Young Women in Science.
She was awarded the South African Association for Advancement of Science, British Association Silver Medal for the most outstanding scientist under the age of 40 in 2009. She was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society in London in 2007.
Beyond Africa, Koekemoer has participated in various World Health Organization activities from 2011 to 2017, as well as in regional and international meetings on the development of the Sterile Insect Technique for Malaria, Zika and Dengue control run by the International Anatomic Energy Agency in Vienna Austria.
