The Team

The team for 'Project 2' of the NWU Open Educational Resources Fellowship are Aurelia Williams, Chandré Herbert and Mario Chauque. Along with a team of educational and multimedia designers and developers from the Centre for Teaching and Learning this artefact titled "Infection Fighers" were developed.

Aurelia Williams

Prof Aurelia Williams earned her PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Pretoria in 2012. After completing her postdoctoral training at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), where she studied the impact of certain genetic factors on brain tumour metabolism and growth, she became an associate professor at the Biochemistry department of North-West University’s Potchefstroom campus. There, she set up an HIV research program and applied metabolomics approaches to infectious and acquired diseases. 

Prof Williams is a member of several scholarly societies, including Metabolomics South Africa (MSA), the South African Society of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology (SASBMB), the International Society for Infectious Diseases (ISID), and the South African Immunology Society (SAIS). Her research has resulted in internationally reviewed publications, numerous awards, and invitations to national and international workshops and conferences. In 2019, she was named one of Mail & Guardian’s Top 200 Young South Africans. In 2021, she was awarded the NWU’s Open Educational Resources Fellowship and was enlisted in the prestigious Future Professors Programme, funded by the Department of Higher Education Training.

Chandré Liebenberg

Chandré Herbert (née Liebenberg) completed her BSc in Microbiology and Biochemistry in 2018 and has since also attained a BSc (Hons) and an MSc in Biochemistry at the NWU, all cum laude. She is pursuing a PhD with a focus on HIV and COVID-19 metabolism at the University of the Witwatersrand/National Institute for Communicable Diseases. 

Her research background is in the application of metabolomics and flow cytometry to the investigation of HIV, TB and HIV/TB co-infection. Liebenberg received a NRF bursary for her MSc and again to complete her PhD. She also served as secretary to the Early Careers Sub-committee of the Metabolomics Association of South Africa (MASA), was engaged in co-supervision and tutoring of Honours students in the Department of Biochemistry at the NWU, and provided training for general laboratory safety, the use of gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, as well as for works in biosafety Level 3 laboratories.

Mario Chauque

Mario Chauque is the HIV/AIDS Programme Coordinator at the Student and Counselling Department, North-West University. He is a qualified social worker by profession. Mario is the Chairperson of the South African Association for Counselling and Development in Higher Education (SAACDHE) for the Vaal/North-West Region. He is also the Deputy Chairperson of the Aurum Institute Community Advisory Board (CAB) based in Klerksdorp. 

Mario has an Honours degree in Psychology and Industrial Psychology as well as a Postgraduate Diploma in Psychological counselling and is currently in the final year of his Master’s degree in Social Work. He is the coordinator of a Peer Helper programme that has 50 students at the NWU as volunteers for the NWU’s Students Advocating Leadership and Transformation (SALT).