Profile of Associate Professor Dina Burger, Deputy Pro Vice-chancellor Research, Monash South Africa

Dina Burger was born in Paarl, in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. She grew up in Keetmanshoop, Namibia as well as in Upington and Pretoria and is currently based in Johannesburg.

Dina studied at the University of Pretoria and currently holds a D Admin degree with the thesis title A National Policy Framework for Disaster Management with Specific Reference to HIV and AIDS in South Africa as well as a Certificate in Counter Disaster Planning and Management from the University of Cranfield in the United Kingdom. This Certificate came about as a joint scholarship from the British Council and the Disaster Centre of the University of Cranfield. Dina has improved her skills on a continuous basis through attending several short courses.

Dina has served the public service in various capacities in the areas of human resource management, human resource development as well as work study and job evaluations.

She has, however, spent the largest proportion of her career within the public higher education system in academic and academic management capacities with specific reference to the field of Public Management. She has developed the curricula for several qualifications from entry level to postgraduate level and, during her time as academic, taught from undergraduate to post graduate level.

She has teaching experience in the areas of Public Management, Human Resource Management, Leadership, Strategic Management, Project Management, Financial Management, Local Government Management, Disaster Management, Policy Analysis, Research Methodology, Development Management and Health Management.

Dina also has extensive experience in the presentation of a variety of short training and capacity development courses to the public service across many different spheres of government and the private sector. She has also participated in several strategic assignments to ensure policy development in the areas of HIV and AIDS.

Dina was an Associate Professor at UNISA and has supervised and co-supervised various postgraduate students to successfully complete their higher degrees by research. In addition, she has published several articles in journals and contributed to a book on Project Management. She has also been involved in several research projects. Her broad research interests include Leadership and Research Management.

After being part of academia for many years Dina expanded her horizons into the domain of research management and was Director of Research at UNISA before being appointed at Monash South Africa, on 1 May 2007, where she holds the position of Deputy Pro Vice-Chancellor Research.