Sian Hemmings PhD

Professor Hemmings completed her postgraduate degrees, as well as postdoctoral work at Stellenbosch University, in the field of psychiatric genetics. She is currently the Head of the Neuropsychiatric Genetics Laboratory at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Stellenbosch University. Here, she directs the genetics and molecular-based research into anxiety- and stress-related disorders, particularly posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and also has strong research interest in foetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD). Her group’s current research involves investigating PTSD and FASD from a systems-biology point of view, integrating information from a variety of sources (genetic, epigenetic, transcriptomic and microbiome) to delineate the molecular aetiology of the disorders. As her group is the only dedicated neuropsychiatric genetics laboratory in South Africa, they have a wide-ranging interest in our work from students from South Africa, as well as other countries in Africa. Prof Hemmings currently supervises a number of postgraduate students, and she is passionate about transferring knowledge to these students, facilitating the progress of scientific research in sub-Saharan Africa. She has made various significant contributions to research into the genetics of anxiety disorders, and collaborates with a number of other international researchers on research projects.