I am an early childhood generalist with experience across a range of disciplines and contexts in the early childhood and foundation phase (birth to nine). My area of specialization is early childhood science education and approaches that cultivate children’s identities and competencies as child scientists. I am an advocate for the implementation of play-based, inquiry-oriented, and transformational pedagogies in early childhood contexts; and child empowering approaches that promote child-citizen’s rights, voice, agency and active participation in early childhood practice and research. I have participated actively in international and local projects focusing on training student- and practicing teachers to implement child-focused inquiry pedagogy following the French La main à la pâte (hands-in-the-dough) approach in practice. I have authored a number of educational publications on
early childhood curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment; and presented papers nationally and internationally at various education conferences. I have supervised and co-supervised several postgraduate students successfully and have been an external examiner for numerous PhD theses. I am a member of the South African Academy for Arts and Sciences (SAASA). Presently, I am in the Department of Curriculum Studies at the University of Stellenbosch, involved in under and postgraduate teacher education, postgraduate supervision, and general academic, review and examination duties.