Professor Petersen was appointed Dean of the Faculty of Engineering & the Built Environment on 01 April 2008. He graduated from the University of Stellenbosch with the B. Ing (Chem), M. Ing (Metal) and Ph.D (Ing) degrees, and completed a short course on Financial Skills for Executive Management with IIR Training. He is a recipient of the Ernest Oppenheimer Memorial Trust and the Cape Technikon (now the Cape Peninsula University of Technology) Researcher of the Year Awards and is a regular reviewer, and member of a range of editorial boards for international journals.
Professor Petersen was the Head of Strategy at Anglo Platinum Corporation and a member of the executive committee. He has extensive experience of management at various levels within the University and industry sectors; he holds full professorship from the Cape Technikon where he also represented Senate at their Council; and he is an extraordinary professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Stellenbosch. He has played a key role in various initiatives within higher education, industry and science councils. He is the founder of the first cohort of industry research organisations in the minerals and energy sectors, and has been actively involved in strategic planning in the Science and Technology Sector, Black Economic Empowerment, Joint Venture formation and Scenario Development. Professor Petersen is serving on various technical, editorial and advisory committees (i.e. Universities, International Journals, International Conferences, NRF, Water Research Commission, NSTF, Department of Science and Technology (DST), NACI, Minerals Education Trust Fund, DST Centres of Excellence, etc) is actively involved and has consulted widely to the South African chemical and metallurgical process industries. He is a former Executive Vice-President: Research and Development at Mintek.
Furthermore, he is a member of the National Advisory Council on Innovation (NACI), member of the Boards of the National Research Foundation (NRF) and Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and a member of the Engineering Council of South Africa (ECSA). Francis is a registered professional engineer with ECSA, and a member of the Board of the Precious Metal and Diamond Regulator. He is the chairman of the Investment Committee of the Innovation Fund, and is a Fellow of both the South African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy and the South African Academy of Engineers.