Thulani Makhalanyane is a Full Professor in the Department of Microbiology and the School of Data Sciences and Computational Thinking at Stellenbosch University. Thulani graduated from the University of the Western Cape, where he completed his postgraduate training (MSc cum laude in 2009, and Ph.D. awarded in 2013). After earning his Ph.D., he joined the University of Pretoria (UP) in 2013. During this period, his research has focused almost entirely on understanding the ecology of microbial communities in extreme environments. These habitats include soil microbial communities in the Antarctic Dry Valleys, the Namib Desert, the human gut microbiome, and is now increasingly focused on South African geographically strategic regions such as the Southern Ocean. He is the founding Chair of the DSI/NRF SARChI in Marine Microbiomics at the University of Pretoria.

After a period as a postdoctoral fellow, which included research at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in the USA, he was appointed Lecturer in 2014 (promoted to Associate Professor in 2019 and Full Professor and Chair from January 2023 at the University of Pretoria) before moving to Stellenbosch University in November 2023. He has previously taught undergraduate modules in Microbiology (Bacteriology) and Genetics (Genome evolution and Phylogenetics). Thulani currently supervises a team of 16 postgraduate students (at M and D levels). He has coauthored over 95 publications, and over 4000 citations (H index 36). These publications have been published in leading multidisciplinary journals (Nature, Science, Nature Microbiology, Science Advances etc.). He has delivered keynote addresses at international meetings, including the Gordon Research Conference on Applied and Environmental Microbiology. He serves on the leading editorial boards within his discipline and is currently Editor in Chief (Reviews and Perspectives) for the ISME Journal (IF >10) and Senior Editor at mSystems (IF >7) and Ecology Letters (IF >10). Thulani serves on several international committees in leading Societies in his discipline including Applied Microbiology International. In 2018, Thulani was elected to the International Board of ISME and was appointed Director of the ISME Ambassador Program which promotes outreach in over 100 countries. Since 2019, Thulani has served as member of the NRF Basic and Applied Microbiology Ratings Specialist Committee and was appointed Convener in 2022. He also serves on several national and international panels representing South Africa in bilateral discussions.

Thulani Makhalanyane has received a number of national and international awards. In August 2016, He received the ISME Ambassador of the Year Award, is a previous Fulbright Scholar, and has been awarded the prestigious TW-Kambule-NSTF Award (Emerging Researcher category) in 2015, the University of Pretoria Exceptional Achievers Award (in 2019, 2020 – 2024), and the National Research Foundation Prestigious Award (P-Rating) in 2019. He was inducted as a Member of the South African Academy of Sciences at 39 years old. He recently received the South African Society for Molecular Biology and Biochemistry Silver Medal Award, which is awarded to a young researcher who has displayed a record of national and international research excellence as evidenced by significant achievement in a number of scholarly ways.