GENEVIEVE DIEDERICKS
Born and raised in a small town (Piketberg) in South Africa, I spent most of my childhood barefoot and outdoors. My love for nature led me to persue a bachelors in BSc Biodiversity and Ecology at Stellenbosch University. But academia is a slippery slope for a curious mind, and so I decided to continue studying - BSc Hons (Zoology), MSc (Zoology) and finally a PhD (Zoology) from Stellenbosch University. After moving to Belgium in 2018, I worked as a Research Assistant at the Royal Museum for Central Africa before persuing a postdoc at the University of Antwerp in 2021.
Though I graduated with degrees in Zoology, my research interests center around population genetics, and the interface between genetics and ecology. To answer these questions I've worked on an array of organisms, including lizards, fish and frogs and extracted DNA from both old, formalin fixed and fresh tissue samples. During my postdoc I was also involved in the European Reference Genome Atlas (ERGA) Pilot Project, working as one of the sequencing hubs responsible for generating the Hi-C and RNA-seq data for a number of pilot species. This gave me additional hands-on lab experience working with blood, insects and sperm samples, amonst others.
After years of dabbling my feet in (informal) project management, planning, budgetting and arranging logistics for field trips, I swapped the lab for my home office and took on the role of Project Manager for the Horizon Europe MSCA Doctoral Network, Nature4Nature, at the start of 2023. In the same year we also welcomed our biggest blessing, our daughter, and moved back to South Africa. After settling into a new life and routine being a full-time parent and part-time project manager, we started BiorteX in 2024, while 2025 saw us being formally accepted as Research Fellows with the Department of Botany & Zoology at Stellenbosch University.
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I pride myself in being an active citizen and strive to make a meaningful difference in our town and country. Hence, joining the Swellendam Bewarea/ Conservancy (SBC) committee was a logical next step. When I'm not busy working or clearing alien invasive vegetation I enjoy spending time with my family, experimenting in the kitchen, gardening and playing board games.
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