Dr Mary-Jane Bopape is the Managing Director of the National Research Foundation (NRF) - South African Environmental Observation Network (SAEON) since May 2022. Preceding this appointment, she was the Research Senior Manager at the South African Weather Service, where she also spent four years as the Chief Scientist of Weather Research. Her background further includes time at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) as well as a two-year post-doctoral research fellowship at the University of Reading in the UK. She holds a PhD in Meteorology from the University of Pretoria and, as an atmospheric modelling specialist, has worked across a range of timescales including short-range forecasting, seasonal prediction as well as climate change projections. Furthermore, she has led several projects, including one that was a collaboration among six SADC countries. She is one of twenty one 2019 Climate Research for Development (CR4D) fellowship grantees and a 2021 AIMS Women Fellow in Climate Change Science. She is a co-recipient of the 2008 World Meteorological Organization (WMO) award for young researchers, and was listed as one of the most influential Africans of 2021 by the New African magazine.