Ernesta Meintjes

Ernesta Meintjes is the South African Research Chair in Brain Imaging, and Professor and Head of the Division of Biomedical Engineering in the Department of Human Biology at the University of Cape Town (UCT). Meintjes initiated the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) research programme at UCT in 2001 and performed the first functional MRI studies in South Africa in 2004. This led to the establishment of the Cape Universities Brain Imaging Centre in 2007, with subsequent expansion in 2015 to the Cape Universities Body Imaging Centre, of which she is the founding director. Her work has generated some of the most comprehensive neuroimaging studies in the world on brain development in children exposed to early-life insults, including maternal alcohol consumption and HIV infection. Recently she was part of a team that demonstrated the efficacy of high-dose prenatal choline supplementation to heavy drinking women in protecting the developing fetal brain.

Meintjes has authored/co-authored more than 120 peer-reviewed journal papers and more than 220 conference papers. She was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship in 2010, was nominated by Women World Neuroscience (WWN) for the Rita Montalcini Scholarship in 2013 and as South African Distinguished Woman Researcher in Research and Innovation in 2019. She is an elected member of the Academy of Science of South Africa, has successfully mentored 17 postdoctoral fellows, graduated 23 PhD and 24 masters students, and is currently supervising/co-supervising 7 PhD and 4 masters students.