Alvaro Viljoen
Professor at the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tshwane University of Technology, Pretoria - South Africa
Born in 1969, Pretoria, South Africa. Completed a BSc, BSc Hons. (cum laude) and MSc (cum laude) in Botany at Stellenbosch University. In 1994 Alvaro commenced with a PhD at the University of Johannesburg on the chemotaxonomy of the genus Aloe. In July 2005, he was appointed as a research fellow in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tshwane University of Technology (Pretoria). More than fifty post-graduate students have graduated under his supervision since 2002. He has authored / co-authored 180 peer-reviewed papers mostly on the phytochemical exploration and biological activity of indigenous medicinal and aromatic plants. He has been elected on to the editorial boards of the Journal of Essential Oil Research (Francis & Taylor) and Phytochemistry Letters (Elsevier); he is the associate editor of the Journal of Ethnopharmacology (Elsevier) and reviewing editor for South African Journal of Botany (Elsevier). In October 2014, Alvaro was awarded the National Research Chair in Phytomedicine. His research interest is the phytochemistry and biological activity of medicinal and aromatic plants with a special interest in chemical profiling and metabolomics of the African flora.