Annadie Kidson was born on 10 April 1971 in Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa. She graduated from high school in 1988, (Randburg, Gauteng) after which she spent a year travelling and working before commencing her university education at the University of Stellenbosch, Western Cape in 1990. She obtained the degrees Bachelor of Science (BSc) and BSc-honours in Human and Animal Physiology and Biochemistry in 1993 and 1994.
In 1998 she graduated MSc cum laude on the subject “The application of assisted reproductive technologies for the production of cape buffalo (Syncerus caffer) embryos”. During her MSc she was employed as an embryologist by African Embryos and Semen, an embryo export company, and later for a year (in 1996) as a Junior Scientist at the Medical Research Council, Parow, South Africa, investigating male contraceptives. She spent 6 months at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, in 1997 as a research/exchange scholar. In 1998, she took a year’s break from science and worked as a care assistant for disabled, stroke and elderly infirm patients in London, UK, before returning to South Africa.
In 1999, she once again returned to Europe and started her PhD study as a research assistant (Assistent-in-Opleiding; AiO) at the Dept of Farm Animal Health, Utrecht University (December 1999) to investigate the influence of the oocyte maturation environment on embryo development and quality in the pig (described in this thesis). During her PhD she also spent 4 months at the Gamete and Germplasm Physiology Laboratory of the United States Department of Agriculture, in Beltsville, Maryland.
She completed her PhD in March 2004 and returned to South Africa where she was appointed as Senior Scientist at the Diabetes Research Group of the Medical Research Council.