By the time she was 29, Debra Meyer already completed her Doctorate in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Since then, she has done everything from presenting the weather on SABC 2 to sitting in the boardrooms of corporate South Africa. It is in the academic world, however, that she is most revered and respected.
In 2025, it was announced that she would become the Vice Chancellor and Principal of South Africa’s newest University, Sol Plaatje University. On the 25th of May of 2026, she finally took up that position and will be leading the university for several years to come.
Now, the question is, what qualifies her to be in charge of a university? Let’s look at her resume.
The Eldorado Park born and bred Debra has been an academic achiever since her school days. She was awarded a bursary to complete a Bachelors, Honours and Masters degree in Science at the University of Johannesburg and then she was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to complete her PhD in the US at the University of California. To be awarded this scholarship, her academic performance needed to be outstanding and she had to show that she was capable of being a leader that contributes to her country. Of course, she did become a pretty outstanding leader and contributed greatly as an academic.
As an academic, she has published or contributed to over 100 journal articles and she has won several science awards including the NSTF/NRF young scientists award, the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World’s Promising Young Scientists award, and the NSTF/ NRF TW Kambule Senior Black Scientist Award. In 2007, Rapport and City Press recognised her as one of South Africa’s ten ‘Women of Prestige’ and in 2009, she was nominated for the African Union Women Scientist Award by the Department of Science and Technology.
In addition to being a lecturer and Professor of Biochemistry, she was also the Head of the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Pretoria, the Executive Dean of Science at the University of Johannesburg and she sits on the board of several companies which include Naspers, Media24 and Orbis Africa.
Now, the fact that she is a full professor is testament to the quality of her work as a scientific researcher. She mostly focused on developing groundbreaking vaccines to stop the spread of HIV. Her team published the first application of nuclear magnetic resonance metabolomics for the detection of HIV/AIDS-influenced metabolites and they developed inductively coupled plasma – atomic emission spectroscopy protocols for detecting the in vitro uptake of iron by mammalian cells. They also published a paper on the first metal-based drug with simultaneous in vitro inhibitory activity against two HIV enzymes and they were widely praised for their research involving the design and analysis of synthetic HIV vaccine.
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