Contact Details
- Phone
- +64 3 470 9541
- kobus.duplooy@otago.ac.nz
- Position
- Senior Lecturer and Psychology Team Leader
- Department
- Department of Psychological Medicine (Dunedin)
- Qualifications
- B.Mil, B.Soc Sci (Hons): Psych, M.Sc. Clin Psych, PhD (Psych), MBA with Distinction
- Research summary
- Wellbeing, sport and performance psychology
- Teaching
- Kobus is mainly involved in lecturing and facilitating tutorials for medical students at the University of Otago. As the Psychology Team Leader, he oversees all teaching delivered by the department to MBChB Year 2 and 3 students. In addition to this, he also presents lectures to Psychiatry Registrars and Health Science students on various mental health and wellbeing topics.
- Memberships
- Full Member of the New Zealand Psychological Society
- Member of the Executive Committee of the New Zealand Psychological Society's Otago Branch
- Editorial Board Member for the Journal of Community Psychosocial Research (JCPR)
- Clinical
- Kobus is a registered Clinical Psychologist with more than 20 years of clinical experience. He currently focuses his part-time clinical work predominantly on assisting elite athletes, high-performance teams, and executives from the business community, whom he sees for psychotherapy and/or executive coaching.
Research
Kobus holds strong research interests in the areas of mental health, wellbeing, sport, and performance psychology. From a research publication and dissemination perspective, he has published 20 peer-reviewed journal articles and has contributed to over 30 conference proceedings and presentations to date. He has supervised seven masters’ students and four PhD candidates to successful completion of their research projects.
He is also appointed as an Extraordinary Professor in the Community Psychosocial Research entity (COMPRES) at North-West University in South Africa, where he remains actively involved in postgraduate supervision and multiple international research collaborations.
Additional details
Dr Kobus Du Plooy is a Senior Lecturer and Psychology Team Leader in the Department of Psychological Medicine in the Faculty of Medicine. He is a registered Clinical Psychologist with over 20 years’ experience across academic, clinical, and applied performance psychology contexts.
Alongside his academic role, he works part-time as a Performance Psychology Provider with High Performance Sport New Zealand and the Otago Rugby Football Union, supporting athletes, coaches, and high-performance support staff with a focus on mental health, psychological development, and sustainable performance.
He also holds an Extraordinary Professorship in Community Psychosocial Research at North-West University (South Africa), where he remains actively involved in postgraduate supervision and international research collaboration.
Teaching and leadership
At Otago, Dr Du Plooy coordinates and oversees teaching delivered by the psychology team within the Department of Psychological Medicine. He lectures across undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in medicine, health sciences, psychiatry, and dentistry. His teaching approach is pragmatic, person-centered, and grounded in experiential learning, with particular emphasis on mental health, mental wellbeing, and cognitive behavioral therapy. He has received multiple teaching awards in recognition of his contributions to medical education.
Current roles
- Senior Lecturer and Psychology Team Leader, Department of Psychological Medicine, Faculty of Medicine (0.6 FTE)
June 2021 – present - Performance Psychology Provider (Part-time), High Performance Sport New Zealand (0.1 FTE)
February 2026 – present - Performance Psychology Services Provider (Part-time), Otago Rugby Football Union
January 2025 – present - Extraordinary Professor: Community Psychosocial Research (COMPRES), North-West University, South Africa
January 2020 – present
Professional distinctions and memberships
- 2020 – 2021: Best new teaching staff award: ELM 2 – University of Otago
- 2020 – 2021: Best new teaching staff award: ELM 3 – University of Otago
- 2020 – 2021: Department of Psychological Medicine teaching award in ALM – University of Otago
- 2019 – 2019: Promoted to Associate Professor - North-West University (South Africa)
- 2018 – 2020: Promoted to Acting Director: Institute of Psychology & Wellbeing – North-West University (South Africa)
- 2017 – 2018: Member of the top-performing group in the North West University Busines School MBA company project
- 2017 – 2018: Top performing student in MBA subject: Technology Management
- 2014 – 2014: Top Young-Up & Coming Researcher – South African Association for Counselling and Development in Higher Education
Publications
Du Plooy, K., Wishart, B., & Scarf, D. (2025). A qualitative study of former participants' experiences of the Green Prescription program in Aotearoa New Zealand. BMC Public Health, 25, 3251. doi: 10.1186/s12889-025-24524-z Journal - Research Article
Du Plooy, K., Wishart, B., & Jolly, M. (2025, September). Mental health recovery in Aotearoa New Zealand. Verbal presentation at the Royal Australian & New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) New Zealand Conference, Dunedin, New Zealand. Conference Contribution - Verbal presentation and other Conference outputs
Lin, C.-C., du Plooy, K., Gray, A., Brown, D., Hobbs, L., Patterson, T., Tan, V., … Hsu, C.-W. (2024). The performance of ChatGPT on short-answer questions in a psychiatry examination: A pilot study. Taiwanese Journal of Psychiatry, 38(2), 94-98. doi: 10.4103/TPSY.TPSY_19_24 Journal - Research Other
Edwin, J., Cornwall, J., & Du Plooy, K. (2024). What medical students want from Mental Health Self-Help Resources: A focus group study. Mental Health & Prevention, 35, 200353. doi: 10.1016/j.mhp.2024.200353 Journal - Research Article
Du Plooy, K., Wishart, B., Scarf, D., & Samaranayaka, A. (2023). The impact of Green Prescription on sustained physical activity levels, quality of life, and mental health. Journal of Sport & Exercise Science, 7(4), (pp. 69-70). doi: 10.36905/jses.2023.04.01 Conference Contribution - Published proceedings: Abstract