UKZN Academics Honoured by ASSAf and SAYAS

The University of KwaZulu-Natal is proud to announce that academics, Professor Petra Brysiewicz, Professor Thirumala Govender and Professor Kavilan Moodley are among 31 of South Africa’s leading scholars and scientists inaugurated as members of the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) while UKZN’s Professor Lembe Magwaza has been selected as one of 10 young academics inaugurated into the South African Young Academy of Science (SAYAS).

Brysiewicz, a professor in the School of Nursing and Public Health and honorary professor in the Division of Emergency Medicine at the University of Cape Town plays an active role in various emergency care organisations in South Africa and Africa, leads educational updates, and undertakes national accreditation of trauma units. For her significant contributions to emergency care and nursing in South Africa, she was awarded the Order of the Emergency Medicine Society of South Africa and was inducted into the Academy of Nursing of South Africa.

Govender, professor of pharmacy in the Discipline of Pharmaceutical Sciences, head of the Drug Delivery Research Proto-Unit and head of the NanoHealth Pillar of the UKZN Nanotechnology Platform completed her PhD at the University of Nottingham through a Commonwealth Scholarship focusing on nanotechnology identified technologies for enhancing drug incorporation into polymeric nanosystems for targeted delivery. With a C1 rating from the NRF, 113 publications and almost 5000 citations, Govender has focused her research on the development of novel materials and antibiotic nano drug delivery systems to target methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infections.

Moodley, professor in the School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science and director of the Astrophysics Research Centre, joined UKZN’s academic staff in 2003 after completing his PhD at the University of Cambridge and postdoctoral research at the University of Oxford. With 85 research papers and 6000 citations to his name, Moodley’s research focuses on cosmology and involves confronting cosmological theories with observational data. The principal investigator on the HIRAX telescope project, he is a member of the National Research Foundation (NRF) Astronomy Advisory Council and the South Africa Radio Astronomy Observatory User Committee, having also served on the scientific board of the international Atacama Cosmology Telescope project, the international science working group for the Square Kilometre Array Project, and as associate editor for the South African Journal of Science. A recipient of the South African Institute of Physics Silver Jubilee Medal and a Fulbright Visiting Research Scholar Fellowship to Princeton University.

Magwaza, an associate professor in the School of Agricultural, Earth and Environmental Sciences, completed his PhD at Stellenbosch University in horticultural sciences and has more than 15 years’ research experience and eight years’ lecturing experience. A Y-rated researcher by the NRF, he focuses on horticultural science, plant physiology, and postharvest biology and technology, developing methods and protocols for preserving fruit and vegetable quality and reducing postharvest losses. His research in rural agronomy and development aims to devise and implement innovative, science-based technologies to increase income and food security through improving soil fertility and crop production for low-input subsistence farmers. He focuses on characterising and improving quantity and quality of food products by identifying appropriate genotypes to withstand inevitable changes in climate.