Executive
Elected Council
Members
NSSA Branch
Representatives
Dr. Elize Symington is a Registered Dietitian and lecturer in Nutrition at the Department of Life and Consumer Sciences, Unisa with 15 years teaching experience. Her research interests fall within nutrition and the first 1000 days where she has studied maternal nutrition during pregnancy and the effect on birth outcomes.
She is particularly interested in micronutrient nutrition and anaemia. She has served on the local organising committee of the Nutrition Congress 2018 and currently serves on the organising committee of the International Congress of Dietetics to be held September 2021. To her, collaboration and knowledge dissemination are important factors for the nutrition fraternity to have an impact on health. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3438-1070 /
Ms Marieke Theron has been working as a lecturer of dietetic students since 2013 at leading universities like the University of Cape Town and the University of the Western Cape. She received a merit award for her outstanding teaching and research in 2018 and is currently completing her PhD in public health.
Marieke is passionate about nutrition and population based health and has completed research in both correctional facilities and public hospitals in the Western Cape. She has been an advocate of the dietetics profession in South Africa and as such would like to assist the Nutrition Society of South Africa in their promotion of nutrition.
Dr. Bianca van der Westhuizen is a senior lecturer in Nutrition at the Department of Life and Consumer sciences, Unisa. She completed her Ph.D. in Nutrition at the Centre of Excellence for Nutrition (CEN), North West University.
She is currently conducting research in public health nutrition focusing on the obesogenic environment of South Africa and how that affects the non-communicable disease profile of the country. Other research interest includes knowledge translation and how to bridge the gap between research and decision makers in terms of public health nutrition related problems. Her goal is to make her research useful.
CORINNA WALSH is a C2 NRF rated professor in the Department of Nutrition and Dietetics at the University of the Free State. Corinna has served on the Board of the South African Medical Research Council and currently serves on the Board of the AIDSMO Trust responsible for children infected or affected by HIV/AIDS.
She has a specific interest in epidemiology, Developmental Origins of Health and Disease, HIV and malnutrition. The focus of her research is on nutritional health, food security, and transitions from traditional to Western lifestyles and how these impact on health.
She has published widely and has supervised more than 40 Masters and Doctoral students. Corinna is registered as a Dietitian with the Health Professions Council of South Africa.
Dr. Wilna Oldewage-Theron PhD RD(SA) is a Professor of Nutrition at Texas Tech University. She has twenty years Community Nutrition research experience in Africa and is a National Research Foundation (NRF)-rated researcher.
Her research interests include the factors contributing to household food insecurity and malnutrition in resource-poor communities where she has investigated the effect of various interventions on food insecurity and nutritional status of vulnerable groups.
She has successfully supervised 12 Postdoctoral Fellows, 15 PhD/DTech and 27 Masters students and has published four book chapters and 99 peer-reviewed articles. She has presented more than 100 papers at national and international conferences.
