She has taught a wide variety of topics to undergraduates in Zoology, the most challenging subject being evolutionary theory and the most fascinating being limnology. She started the third-year course in freshwater biology at UCT in 1996 and the Honours module on the same theme in 1998. Her interests in teaching and research united and evolved into two main themes. On the one hand, she has contributed to some fascinating work on environmental literacy and the learning of evolutionary theory by new undergraduate students; on the other hand, together with Bryan Davies, she wrote the book Vanishing Waters (1998), which won a Meritorious Publication award from UCT in 1999. As well as teaching undergraduates, she has supervised or co-supervised many Honours, MSc and PhD students, and has acted as External Examiner in the assessment of a variety of postgraduate theses.
She is a Member of the South African Institute of Ecologists and Environmental Scientists and has served as a member of the governing Board. She is also a Past President of the Southern African Society of Aquatic Scientists, past Member of the Council of the Zoological Society of Southern Africa, and past member of the South African national Committee of the International Union of Biological Sciences.
She has often been invited to speak at workshops, congresses and symposia, and recently taught in a Short Course on the management of Transboundary water resources, funded by US-AID in Harare. She is on the Board of SADC's (Southern African Development Community) Water Research Fund, and has participated in the process for implementing varous aspects of the new National Water Act, particularly with regard to management of wetlands and water quality.
Some major research projects that she is presently directing or have recently been completed concern the conservation of the wetlands and rivers of the Cape Floristic Region; the incorporation of water quality considerations into the Instream Flow Requirements (IFR) technology; the use of protozoans as bioindicators of water quality; the effects of water-quality variables on aquatic ecosystems; tools, including toxicological assays, for evaluating regional water quality guidelines; the classification of wetlands; and the assessment of environmental and evolutionary literacy in school leavers.
Although much of the research that she is presently involved with is slanted towards the management of human-altered aquatic ecosystems, her primary research interests (when she has a moment to devote to them) include all aspects of wetlands ecology. Specific topics of interest are: temporary and ephemeral wetlands, especially in arid areas; the tolerances of freshwater invertebrates to chemical and physical conditions; the chemistry of natural waters, particularly if they are saline or ‘blackwater' systems; the biogeography and diversity of the invertebrates of inland waters; the biology of wetland crustaceans; and the processes involved in learning and teaching science.
