Ben-Erik van Wyk is a professor of botany at the University of Johannesburg. He served as chairman or member of various national forums, companies, professional associations, editorial boards and academic committees and contributed to new crop and product development. As chairman of the National Research Foundation’s Indigenous Plant Use Forum (IPUF), he has organised annual IPUF conferences since 1996. In 2013, he was awarded the National Research Chair in Indigenous Plant Use and is leading a project to record and conserve traditional knowledge about useful plants. The results of Prof van Wyk’s research (especially on medicinal plants, useful plants and plant classification) has been published in 19 books and more than 300 research papers in scientific journals. Examples of well-known books include “Culinary Herbs and Spices of the World”, “Medicinal Plants of the World” and “Medicinal Plants of South Africa”. The South African Association of Botanists (SAAB) honoured him with the prestigious SAAB Gold Medal in 2015.
