Richard Pretorius

Richard completed his undergraduate through master's degrees in Applied Mathematics at the University of Pretoria (UP). His postgraduate years at UP were spent investigating the asymptotic stability of various generalised Lotka-Volterra models.  While attending a conference in Durban, Richard observed the 2024 sardine run and immediately wondered whether one could model the phenomenon. He asked the right people the right questions and, after finishing his master's degree in 2025, decided to pursue his PhD with the MARAM Group. 

His research now has nothing to do with the sardine run, and instead focuses on the feasibility of conducting close-kin mark-recapture and other genetically informed abundance estimates to certain South African marine species. His PhD is supervised by Dr Carryn de Moor and Professor Doug Butterworth.