Empowering the Future: Meet the Doctoral students of the SAWiSA DSTI–Dr. Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri Fellowship
The South African Women in Science Awards (SAWiSA) not only celebrates excellence among distinguished and emerging women scientists — it also paves the way for the next generation of innovators. Meet the brilliant doctoral candidates shaping the future of science in South Africa.
Ms Kimberly Christine Coetzer is studying towards a PhD in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology at Stellenboysch University. Her current research focuses on integrating multi-omics data to uncover disease mechanisms and gene functions, using amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) as a model. Through her work, she aims to advance inclusive, reproducible and impactful science, while amplifying the voices of women in science through interdisciplinary innovation.
Ms Coetzer's academic and research achievements have earned her multiple prestigious awards. In 2024, she was honoured with the L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science South Africa Young Talents Award. She led winning projects at the African Society for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology codeathons, placing first in 2023 and second in 2024. In 2023, she was named as one of the Best Postgraduate Students at Stellenbosch University. Her work was featured in the February 2025 issue of the Osteogenesis Imperfecta Federation Europe magazine. Earlier in her academic journey, she made the Dean's Merit List in 2020 as the top-performing honours student in Biotechnology at UWC.
She has published five peer-reviewed papers in prestigious journals such as Nature, American Journal of Medical Genetics, European Journal of Medical Genetics, and European Journal of Human Genetics. She was the second author of an article in the American Journal of Medical Genetics that received the 2023 John M Opitz Young Investigator Award and was ranked among the journal's top 10% of articles for that year. One of her articles is currently under review, and another was recently accepted in the Journal of Proteins and Proteomics.
She has presented her work at several key conferences, including the South African Society for Bioinformatics Student Chapter/South African Genetics Society Symposium, International Congress of Human Genetics, Southern African Society of Human Genetics Conference, Ubuntu Proteomics Summer School, Human Genome Meeting, and International Society for Computational Biology Africa Conference.
