Exceptional potential: Dr Lindsey Gillson of UCT's Plant Conservation Unit has received a P-rating from the National Research Foundation.

Dr Lindsey Gillson of UCT's Plant Conservation Unit in the Department of Botany has received a President's Award, or P-rating, from the National Research Foundation.

She was one of 21 researchers who received A- and P-ratings in the latest round.

President's Awards are made to young researchers who have held a doctorate for less than five years but who, on the basis of the "exceptional potential" shown in their early research careers, are likely to become future leaders in their field.

Gillson joined UCT in 2006 as a lecturer in the Department of Botany, and as deputy director of the Plant Conservation Unit.

She completed a DPhil at the University of Oxford in 2002. Her doctoral research, on vegetation change in East Africa's elephant habitat, explored the palaeoecology and management of the Tsavo National Park in Kenya.

In 2001 Gillson was appointed as the first Trapnell Fellow in African Terrestrial Ecology at the Environmental Change Institute at Oxford.

In this post she developed themes of long-term vegetation change, ecosystem management and conservation in African savannas, initiating the first palaeoecological project in the Kruger National Park.

The Trapnell Fellowship and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation funded the project.