Dr. Evodia Setati obtained her doctorate in Microbiology in 2002 at Stellenbosch University (SU) and did her postdoctoral fellowship at University of the Free State (UFS). She began her academic career as a lecturer at UFS in 2003, followed by another lecturing stint at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. When she started her academic career, her research was focused on the microbial ecology of hypersaline environments and has co-authored several papers on the topic. During this time she also served as a secretary and then vice-president of the South African Society for Microbiology. While at UKZN she also served as the chairperson of SASM-KZN.

In 2010 Dr. Setati joined the Institute for Wine Biotechnology (IWBT) as senior researcher, and started a new research programme in wine microbiology. Her research is focused on the microbial ecology of wine grapes; evaluating (i) the impact of farming systems and viticultural practices on microbial diversity, (ii) population dynamics during fermentation, and (iii)incorporating metagenomics to study the taxonomic potential of the wine microbiome. Dr. Setati works close with other colleagues at IWBT to investigate microbial interactions during wine fermentation using –omics approaches to monitor key drivers such quorum sensing and the production of antimicrobial compounds such as killer toxins and short-chain fatty acids. She currently supervises 3 PhD students and an MSc students looking at different aspects related to the above mentioned foci and also an additional 2 PhD students on other metagenomics related projects.