Prof Willem de Villiers takes up his appointment as Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences on the 1 August. This follows the retirement of Professor Marian Jacobs in December 2012. He becomes the 13th Dean to be appointed in the Faculty.

A respected researcher in the field of gastroenterology, De Villiers has been chief of the Division of Digestive Diseases and Nutrition in the Department of Medicine at the University of Kentucky, where he was professor of the same division for over six years.

He is the recipient of several awards for his studies and work: best final-year MBChB student at Stellenbosch University, Nuffield Dominion Medical Fellow at Wolfson College at the University of Oxford, and several consecutive annual awards for Best Doctors in America. He has a DPhil from the University of Oxford, and a Master's in Health Care Management from the Harvard School of Public Health.

A Fellow of the American Gastroenterological Association and an Honorary Fellow of the South African Gastroenterological Society, De Villiers is also an international speaker on inflammatory bowel disease, pathophysiology, translational science and clinic management.

With support from industry, he built up one of the largest gastroenterology clinical research centres in the US. The Inflammatory Bowel Disease Programme currently has more than 2 500 active patients, with some 600 patients on biologic therapy. In addition, he has been the principal investigator on more than 35 industry-sponsored studies into inflammatory bowel disease.

In a letter to staff and students Vice-Chancellor Dr Max Price wrote: "We look forward to the critical contribution that Professor de Villiers will make to the faculty and the university through his leadership."

The appointment of De Villiers comes in the wake of the 2012 Times Higher Education World University Rankings, which rated UCT among the top 50 universities offering clinical and health subjects.

The Faculty of Health Sciences celebrated its 100th birthday last year and its teaching and research is focused on addressing the health needs of Africa and the rest of the developing world.

The Faculty's executive management team, under the leadership of Interim Dean Professor Susan Kidson, has planned an orientation programme for Professor de Villiers to familiarise himself with a large and multifaceted faculty that has a global reputation for excellence.