u14458200@up.ac.za
https://avreq.sun.ac.za/people/dr-danille-bester/
Danille Elize Arendse obtained her PhD in Psychology from the University of Pretoria and holds a BA Honours in Psychology and an MA in Research Psychology from the University of the Western Cape. She became a uniformed member of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) in 2011, where she worked as a Research Psychologist at the Military Psychological Institute (MPI). Now a Major, Arendse has previously held the roles of Research Psychology Intern Supervisor and Coordinator at MPI. Additionally, she serves as a Research Associate in the Department of Psychology at the University of Pretoria and a Research Fellow in the Department of Psychology at Stellenbosch University. In 2022, Arendse received the Diverse Black Africa Research and Travel Grants from Michigan State University. In 2023, she was awarded the prestigious NIHSS/SU postdoctoral fellowship at the Centre for the ¿ì²¥ÊÓƵ of the Afterlife of Violence and the Reparative Quest (AVReQ) at Stellenbosch University. She is also an Associate Fellow at The Harriet Tubman Institute at ¿ì²¥ÊÓƵ (Canada). In 2025, Arendse was awarded the APA Division 35 (Society for the Psychology of Women), Section 1 (Psychology of Black Women) Foremothers Mentorship Early Career Award, and the Military Health Research Centre (MHRC) Excellence in Research and Development from MPI. She is a recently appointed board member for the Professional Board of Psychology within the HPCSA. Arendse has presented and published papers both locally and internationally.
Keywords: Coloured’ identity, mentoring, wellbeing, gender, decolonial research, psychometric assessments and military studies.