Leadership and Management
Ashleen Fortuin
Personal Assistant
Ashleen Fortuin is the Personal Assistant to the Director: School for Climate Studies. Her duties include providing secretarial, administrative, and personal assistance to the Director of the School.
Suzaan Kritzinger-Klopper
Chief Technical Officer
Suzaan Kritzinger-Klopper is the Chief Technical Officer of the C·I·B and School for Climate Studies. In assisting the core team members and their students, Suzaan is the overall responsible person for field work and equipment. She is also the liaison for permits, landowners and all other parties. Her main area of interest is in fynbos botanical diversity, and she helps with basic plant identification.
Prof Guy Midgley
Director: School for Climate Studies
Distinguished Professor: Department of Botany and Zoology
Google Scholar
Guy Midgley has worked in the fields of global change and biodiversity science since the 1980s, including a 32-year career at the South African National Biodiversity Institute. He took up a Professorship at Stellenbosch University (Botany and Zoology) in 2014. He has held lead roles in international scientific assessments (IPCC 4th, 5th and 6th Assessments, CBD ad hoc Technical Expert Group, and IPBES Global Assessments) and national level syntheses for climate change policy guidance. With over 170 publications, he holds an NRF A-rating, has been a Thomson Reuters highly cited researcher (2014), and is rated amongst the top 200 most influential climate change scientists globally (2021). He is a holder of the SA Royal Society Marloth Medal and Humboldt Foundation Research Award for lifetime science contributions.
Erika Nortje
Manager: Ecophysiology Laboratory
Erika Nortje is the Manager for the SCS-CIB Ecophysiology laboratory. She is responsible for equipment maintenance, laboratory safety, supply chain management, animal husbandry, and coordinating laboratory space and equipment usage. Erika takes care of curating the microclimate data from the long-term Cederberg transect and assists with other exciting laboratory and administrative tasks.
Namita Vanmali
Senior Technical Writer
Namita Vanmali is a Senior Technical Writer at the School for Climate Studies. Holding an MSc in Botany, her experience spans ecological and policy research, conservation planning, and institutional fundraising, supporting efforts to address some of Africa’s most pressing climate challenges. Namita works across the School’s research teams to develop high-quality funding proposals, translating scientific research and conservation priorities into compelling, donor-friendly submissions.