Prof Brenda Schmahmann holds the SARChI chair in South African Art and Visual Culture at the University of Johannesburg and has been a full Professor for more than two decades. An art historian, she has focused much of her work on enabling knowledge and understanding of women’s art practices and, through that, fostering women’s empowerment. An accomplished supervisor of postdoctoral research fellows as well as postgraduates, she has successfully mentored other academics, the majority of whom are women. An internationally recognised researcher and winner of a VC Book Award, she has also played an active role in developing research capacity in her faculty as well as serving a wider academic community.