Our Team

Soraya Seedat is a Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Executive Head of the Department of Psychiatry at Stellenbosch University. She held the South African Research Chair in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder for 15 years (until the end of 2022) and currently directs the South African Medical Research Council Unit on the Genomics of Brain Disorders. She has more than 20 years of clinical, epidemiological, and basic neuroscience research experience as a psychiatrist working in the field of traumatic stress, anxiety, and neuroAIDS. She has published over 500 peer-reviewed journal manuscripts and co-edited four books and 30 book chapters. She has served two terms as the President of the College of Psychiatrists of South Africa and three terms as Secretary and is currently a member of the Board of Directors and an Honorary Registrar of the Colleges of Medicine of South Africa. Prof Seedat is an expert in the field of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and anxiety disorders, in adolescents and adults, and in the investigation of mechanisms of risk and resilience in adolescent and adult samples and has published widely in these areas. She has ongoing projects in PTSD, anxiety disorders, neuroAIDS, and fetal alcohol spectrum disorders. She has also been involved in multiple research training, capacity building, and leadership development activities in sub-Saharan Africa and internationally, supported by NIMH grants and other funding initiatives.