Prof Petrus de Vries is a British-South African child & adolescent psychiatrist based in the Division of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. He coordinates the IACAPAP Helmut Remschmidt Research Seminars (HRRS), a research capacity-building programme for early career child and adolescent mental health researchers.

Petrus was Treasurer of the IACAPAP from 2018-2022 and was co-Editor of the IACAPAP Monograph between 2016-2022. He also previously served as President of the South African Association for Child & Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Professions (SA-ACAPAP) from 2019-2022, as Chairman of the African Division of the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCPsych) from 2018-2022, and as Secretary of the International Society for Autism Research (INSAR) from 2019-2021. He is the current President of the International Society for Autism Research (INSAR).  

He has a clinical and research interest in neurodevelopmental disorders. He is the Founding Director of the Centre for Autism Research in Africa (CARA), directs a Tuberous Sclerosis Complex Research Programme, and runs a programme on understanding and strengthening child & adolescent mental health systems in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) and other low-resource settings. His work includes over 200 peer-reviewed publications, book chapters and edited books.