We’re thrilled to announce two new members of the ASAPbio Board of Directors: Osman Aldirdiri, a student and researcher at the University of Khartoum, Sudan, and Thabiso Motaung, a Lecturer at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. Both members have participated in the current or former class of ASAPbio Fellows.
Thabiso is a microbiologist with a background in biotechnology studying plant-pathogen interactions. He also serves in an advisory subcommittee conducting risk assessments of biotechnologies for the National Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries, as an ethics division coordinator for the University of Pretoria, and a Review Editor for Frontiers in Plant Sciences and Frontiers in Microbiology. He is also appointed as a Research Fellow in the Crop Improvement and Germplasm Development division of Agricultural Research Council – Small Grain Institute. He is passionate about advancing the use of preprints by growing a network of Fellows in low and middle income countries and advocating for policy changes at funding agencies.
Osman is a medical student conducting research on general surgery and anesthesiology. He’s affiliated with many other organizations in the scholarly communication space, including AfricArXiv, SPARC Africa, Open Knowledge Maps, and FORCE11. He’s interested in helping Fellows host local training sessions and investing efforts in younger generations of students and researchers, saying, “I hope ASAPbio will continue growing its impact to involve more science communities of underprivileged, underrepresented and indigenous groups.”
We’re looking forward to being guided by these new perspectives in our work!
