Organization

Organization

 The SAVUSA team consists of six persons.

Geert J.P. Savelsbergh is the new director of SAVUSA, succeeding dr. Harry Wels, who is pursuing his scientific career.  As a director, Savelsbergh aims to build on SAVUSA’s international reputation established under the leadership of dr. Harry Wels. He holds the Desmond Tutu chair for Youth, Sport and Reconciliation, Head of the Motor Control group at MOVE and visiting professor in Perceptual-Motor Development and Learning at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. His research interest is the visual regulation of movement, and he has (co)-supervised 19 PhD projects and is currently supervising 11 PhD projects in the Netherlands, Belgium and the UK.

Neeria Oostra graduated in Political Sciences at VU University Amsterdam. She spent some time working at the Colombian Consulate in the Netherlands, before shifting her focus to South Africa. Neeria works at the SAVUSA Project Office as a project leader and project coordinator of the Desmond Tutu Scholarship programme and SKILL programme.

Frans Kamsteeg did ethnographic research in Latin America and  received his PhD on the political impact of Pentecostalism in Pinochet's Chile in 1995. From 1997 onward he has been working as an organisational scientist at the Social Sciences Faculty of VU University Amsterdam. He teaches on organisational culture and ethnography. Since 2008 his research focuses on higher education and transformation processes in South Africa.  His main drive at SAVUSA is to work on stronger cooperative networks between South African and Dutch academics, and to contribute to a better understanding of the challenge diversity poses to South African as well as to Dutch higher education institutions.

Colette Gerards studied Cultural Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam, specializing in Medical Anthropology and Development studies. SAVUSA managed to lure her away from her 8-year stint as a programme officer at SANPAD (South Africa – Netherlands Research Programme on Alternatives in Development) in order to make her coordinator of the SKILL-programme, together with Neeria. Colette will help to coordinate, further develop, professionalize and financially organize the SKILL programme, using her impressive network and long experience within the South African academic context. 

Eline Baaten is SAVUSA's newest member. She graduated in Cultural History at the University of Groningen. During her research, she analyzed how the figure of the hermaphrodite was used to write ambiguity and reconciliation. She has worked in marketing since 2009. She has currently taken over Colette Gerards' activities, sinds Colette is on maternity leave. Eline also markets and supports various activities of the SKILL programme.