Isak Pretorius

Background

About Isak Pretorius

Prof Sakkie Pretorius is Deputy Vice Chancellor: Research at Macquarie University in Sydney. He is internationally recognised as a pioneer in synthetic yeast genomics and wine biotechnology, and the translation of research outcomes to industry. Sakkie began his career in South Africa. At Stellenbosch University, he established a reputation for innovation and was appointed Professor of Microbiology in 1993. He also became the founding Director of South Africa’s Institute for Wine Biotechnology at the same university. In the US and Europe, Sakkie also established a reputation for excellence: he conducted research into molecular yeast genetics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York and at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, Germany, and became a part-time professor at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium. In 2003, he relocated to Adelaide with his family to become Director of Research at the Australian Wine Research Institute (AWRI). He was also appointed Affiliate Professor in the School of Agriculture, Food and Wine at the University of Adelaide. In 2004, he became Managing Director of the AWRI. In 2011, he was appointed Deputy Vic-Chancellor and Vice-President : Research and Innovation at the University of South Australia - a position which he held until the middle of 2013 before he took up his current role as Deputy Vice Chancellor: Research at Macquarie University in Sydney. Professor Pretorius has published more than 260 peer-reviewed research papers and book chapters (current Scopus H-index of 68; Google Scholar H-index of 89) and presented at 600 conferences (many as an invited keynote speaker) and research seminars. He won many research grants ($130 million) and awards, and filed six patents. Over the past three decades, Sakkie has supervised or co-supervised 34 PhD students and 56 MSc students. He held Adjunct Professorships at the University of Adelaide, University of South Australia, and University of British Columbia. He is an Honorary Fellow of The Australian Wine Research Institute.