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. He is the current President of the South African Association for Child & Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Professions (SA-ACAPAP), Chairman of the African Division of the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCPsych), and Secretary of the International Society for Autism Research (INSAR).

Prof de Vries is the current treasurer (2018-2022) of the International Association of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Professions (IACAPAP). He also coordinates the Helmut Remschmidt Research Seminars (HRRS), a research capacity-building programme for early career child and adolescent mental health researchers, and is co-Editor of the IACAPAP Monograph.

He has a clinical and research interest in neurodevelopmental disorders, and directs the Centre for Autism Research in Africa (CARA), a Tuberous Sclerosis Complex Research Programme, and 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.