Mariana Kruger is a paediatric oncologist and ethicist. She is currently a full professor and executive head of the department of Paediatrics and Child Health at Tygerberg Hospital, Stellenbosch University. She is past African Continental President for the International Society for Paediatric Oncology (SIOP). She has publications in paediatric oncology, paediatric HIV, research ethics, several chapters in books and has been editor, as well as author of an African research ethics guidebook with the title “Research Ethics in Africa: A Resource for Research Ethics committees” (Co-editors: Drs Lyn Horn and Paul Ndebele) . 

She is a founder member (2003) and co-principal investigator of South African Research Ethics Training Initiative (SARETI), funded by Fogarty International Centre, NIH, USA, which aims to build African research ethics review capacity and an honorary professor in the School of Applied Human Sciences (Discipline of Psychology), University of KwaZulu-Natal. She has served on several ethics review committees (including as either chair or deputy chair for the last 10 years) and is currently a member of the Stellenbosch University Senate Ethics Review Committee, as well as Committee for Postgraduate Research of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Stellenbosch University. 

She is the PI of the National Retinoblastoma Protocol of South Africa, as well as the Cameroon Baptist Hospitals Retinoblastoma Protocol for low-income countries. She is currently conducting the National Nutritional Intervention Programme for South African Paediatric Oncology Units in collaboration with staff at Columbia University Medical Centre.

Currently she serves as clinical medicines evaluator on the Advisory Clinical Committee of the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA), as a member of the South African Medical Research Council Bioethics Advisory Panel (BAP), HPCSA Board and the Professional Practice Committee of the HPCSA.

She is a recipient of the Stellenbosch University 2020 Chancellor’s Award for sustained excellence in research, in innovation, in learning and teaching, in social impact and in professional service.