Welcome

More recently, together with The Renaissance Network (my parents’ business), we produced The Undergraduate Toolkit (2022). Aimed at matriculants and undergraduate students, The Undergraduate Toolkit equips undergraduate students with critical life and academic skills to complete their undergraduate degrees and transition into the world of work. It is also aimed at stakeholders in the higher education sector, such as funders, organised labour, employers, librarians, lecturers, parents and caregivers, so that they are capacitated to promote graduate development efforts. The Undergraduate Toolkit comprises six parts, including 18 chapters. It has a total of 880 pages. The Undergraduate Toolkit is available online, on USB and in hard copy (printed format), upon request.

We have started a sponsorship campaign to make The Undergraduate Toolkit available in hard printed format to disadvantaged students at secondary schools, colleges and universities and in community libraries. We are seeking sponsors to print an initial quantity of 1000 books. The price of each book is R977.50 (incl. VAT). Every single donation counts. To make a donation, please complete the sponsorship request form.

My business is also an independent book publisher. In addition to publishing the Postgraduate Toolkit and co-publishing The Undergraduate Toolkit, I have, together with my partner Dr Meryl du Plessis’s business, RedChord (Pty) Ltd, edited and published a collection of writing and artwork by LGBTQIA people and our allies from across Africa. This book, entitled Is my queer body not strong enough? Pan-African writings & artwork, was launched on 5 November 2022. This anthology contains 95 entries by 78 contributors and spans almost 500 pages. The entries cover a wide range of genres, from articles and critical analyses to personal reflections, poems and short stories, to music, photographs and videos. It is available in hard printed copy and as an e-book. 100% of the sales go to a queer shelter or a shelter that provides services to the queer community.

I provide editing and academic writing assistance to researchers. This involves language editing as well as giving content-related feedback on draft research proposals, thesis chapters, papers for publication and funding applications.

I also run three different mentorship programmes for researchers, postgraduate supervisors and early- to mid-career academics. The first is a structured 12-month mentoring programme that is ideal for postgraduate students; the second is a 10-week accelerated mentorship programme, which is geared for researchers who have to produce research output within tight timeframes (such as the end stages of completing a thesis, or postdoctoral researchers who have to publish more papers for promotion purposes) and the third is an informal bundle of 5 mentoring sessions that can be used up at any stage over a 12-month period, providing flexibility. All 3 mentorship programmes are run online. Please email me at Lcassimers@gmail.com to apply or for further information.

I have been a reviewer for the South African Pharmaceutical Journal, the journal Traditional Medicine and Modern Medicine and for the National Research Foundation (South Africa) in its Thuthuka programme for emerging researchers. I was also the lead author on the grant application writing module for the Association of Commonwealth Universities in its STARs (Structured Training for African Researchers) programme.

I hold a B.Pharm. (with distinction) and PhD (Pharmacology) from Rhodes University, as well as an MBA (with distinction) from UNISA. I am a qualified Yoga instructor. I have done research on the development and use of a six-week self-care healing intervention in queer and/ or women survivors of psychological trauma in South Africa. 

Given the positive effects of the self-care healing intervention, I opened an online Centre for Indigenous Healing of Trauma. In order to book a session, clients are requested to make a donation to selected humanitarian/ welfare organisations in occupied Palestine, Sudan and/ or South Africa. Further details are available on the webpage for the Centre.