De Wet Wolmarans joined the Department of Pharmacology at the North-West University (NWU), South Africa, in 2007. Here his interests into the so-called abnormality of some naturalistic phenotypes of animal behaviour grew, a theme that formed the core focus of both his M.Sc. (2011) and Ph.D. (2015) studies. Being interested in the cognitive divide that separate human from animal, his research focuses on the psychobiological mechanisms that may contribute to the manifestation of, what is perceived to be, abnormal animal behaviours that are reminiscent of clinical neuropsychiatric symptomologies. In the 7 years since he obtained his Ph.D., Prof Wolmarans has trained 22 post-graduate students in behavioural neuroscience in various roles and is actively taking part in numerous international collaborations. He was elected to the executive committee of the South African Neuroscience Society 2020, currently serves on the South African Pharmacy Council and heads research in the research programme, Translational Neuroscience and Neurotherapeutics, at the NWU.  His research currently focuses on naturalistic, but persistent and excessive, goal-directed behaviours in preclinical models.