Liezel Herselman has 28 years of experience as a researcher and joined the UFS in 2004 as a Senior Lecturer
in Plant Breeding. For the past nine years she has served as the Academic Head of the Department of Plant
Sciences. Her research focuses on marker-assisted disease resistance breeding in wheat within a South African
context. She has graduated 13 MSc and 21 PhD students. Prof Herselman has a Google Scholar H-index of 20
and has published 50 articles in international peer-reviewed journals, with 83 contributions at national and
international conferences. In 2020, the Southern African Plant Breeders’ Association bestowed the prestigious
Fellow Award on her in recognition of her exceptional contributions to plant breeding in Southern Africa,
especially training and mentoring the plant breeders of the future.