October 2017
Dr Lars Guenther, SciCOM postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Research on Evaluation, Science and Technology (CREST) at Stellenbosch University from August 2015 to June 2017, has won a Postdoctoral Fellow Award for Exceptional Achievement.
Every year, Stellenbosch University honours 20 postdoctoral fellows who have demonstrated exceptional productivity and excellence in their research. The award comes with a cash prize of R10 000.
“I am very happy about this; the award reflects the huge productivity of the whole team at CREST”, Dr Guenther said. During his two years at CREST, Dr Guenther presented 15 papers at international conferences, while 13 journal articles, 9 book chapters and 2 books that he authored or co-authored were accepted or published. His research focused on public perceptions of science and technology in South Africa, as well as media coverage of science in South African media.
He has returned to Germany to take up a research and teaching position at Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, but he will keep close ties with the SciCOM research group in Stellenbosch. A number of collaborative research projects are already in the pipeline.