Eric Senior, Ph.D., is Waste-tech Professor of Waste Technology in the Department of Microbiology and Plant Pathology at the University of Natal in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. He is also Director of the International Centre for Waste Technology (Africa). Professor Senior read Botany at the University of Liverpool, England from which he graduated in 1974. His Ph.D. degree on the “Characterisation of a Microbial Association Growing on the Herbicide Dalapon”, was awarded by the University of Kent, England in 1978. After postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands and the University of Essex, England, Professor Senior was appointed Lecturer in Applied Microbiology at the University of Strathclyde in Scotland. In 1990 he left to take the Foundation Chair of Microbiology at the University of Natal. Professor Senior relinquished this Chair in 1992 to take his present position. Professor Senior is a member of the Society for General Microbiology and has served on Fermentation and Ecology Group Committees and its Scottish branch. He is also a member of the Society for Applied Bacteriology and the South African Society for Microbiology. Internationally, Professor Senior has held Visiting Chairs and acted as advisor/consultant in a number of countries including the U.K., Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Hong Kong, and India. He is also a member of the editorial board of the World Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology. Professor Senior is an author of more than 200 publications. His current research interests focus on the fundamental interspecies interactions underpinning environmental biotechnologies and the elucidation of these by use of microcosms and laboratory models.
