I studied agronomy and following a diploma thesis on the genetic study of old roses, I continued my career by specializing in the field of molecular phylogenetics of plants at the University of Johannesburg (South Africa) and at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (UK). My experience has led me to work on the flora of the Southern African region or on botanical families such as coffee or Combretaceae. In recent years I have been involved in a large project of "tree of life" of flowering plants using modern DNA sequencing techniques. In my current position at the Botanic Garden of Meise (Belgium) I hope to combine my interest in Combretaceae (as well as other families such as Araceae) and the Central African flora by using recent molecular methods.