The Graduate School 2011 Damen Award Winner: Dr. Annette Seegers

It is an honor and privilege to introduce the Graduate School’s 2011 Damen Award winner, Dr. Annette Seegers.  Dr. Seeger has spent her life contributing to political science studies and community-based organizations through her extensive work with universities and governmental organizations. Originally from East London, South Africa, Dr. Seegers moved to the United States on a Fulbright Scholarship to complete her doctoral studies at Loyola University Chicago.

After earning her PhD, Dr. Seegers returned to South Africa and began teaching at the University of Cape Town. While there, she twice served as head of the university’s distinguished Department of Political Studies and, for a long period of time, served as dean and deputy dean of faculty.

From 1990 to 1991, Dr. Seegers was a fellow of the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC.  In 1990, during the emergence of a variety of South African political groups, she was part of a group of negotiators who formulated the military reintegration process. In South Africa’s first democratic election in 1994, she was a member of the Independent Electoral Commission, responsible for conducting a free and fair election. She later helped draft chapter 11 of the South African Constitution, which deals with the police, military and intelligence services. She was also an advisor to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Dr. Seegers also chairs the Board of Trustees of the Philani Child Health and Nutrition Project, a community-based non-governmental organization that provides health and employment services to vulnerable children and mothers located in poverty-stricken informal settlements.

Dr. Seegers currently serves as an advisor to the minister of defense and the chief of the South African Army. She is a member of the American Political Science Association, the South African Institute for International Affairs, and the South African Association of Political Studies. Since 1999, she has been a visiting professor at Princeton University.

Congratulations to Dr. Annette Seegers on her award.

Dr. Samuel A. Attoh

Associate Provost for Research

Dean, The Graduate School