Dr Samson Khene is a Senior Lecture in Physical Chemistry at Rhode University. His main field of research has been in the synthesis and spectroscopic characterisation of phthalocyanine complexes for their possible application as photosensitisers in photodynamic therapy (PDT), electrocatalysis and nonlinear optical (NLO) material. He has published research papers in international Journals (with impact factors ranging from 1.4 to 13) and 1 book chapter. He hold a NRF Y rating and has an h-index of 13 (Scopus), a HOPE fellow, Africa Science Leadership Program (ASLP) fellow and member of the Board of African Network for Electroanalytical Chemistry (ANEC). He has been selected to attend 9^th HOPE meeting with Noble prize Laureates in Japan (2017) and Africa Science Leadership program (2017). He has been invited to be a speaker at the Electrochemical Society (ECS) in Seattle (USA) May 2018. Dr Khene has served as an external examiner for PhD and MSc research thesis, a journal editor, a reviewer for journals, conferences and NRF funding proposals. He is a co-organiser of “General Session” symposia at the 70^th international Society of Electrochemistry (ISE) 2019, to be held in Durban (It is the first of its kind in Africa).

Dr khene is a co-founder of the Rhodes Science Dialogues (RSD) and Science Village Hubs (SVH) (under ASLP initiative). The initiative arose from a deep concern of creating a more scientifically literate African society. He believes that a scientifically illiterate society is a disempowered society, which does not fully possess the capacity to engage with and understand natural and social phenomenon. The “Science Village Hubs” is composed of individual from different African Countries, namely South Africa, Ghana, Sudan, Ethiopia and Nigeria.

Matseliso Mokhele is a Research Associate Professor in the faculty of Education at the University of Fort Hare. Her research interests lie in the area of Teacher Education, in particular on what has become a large industry in South Africa, the provision of professional development and support to primary and secondary school teachers. Professor Mokhele’s research star has continued to rise from her humble beginnings as a Research Assistant at the University of Pretoria, a Research Officer at the ETDP-SETA, a Research Manager at the HSRC, a Senior Lecturer at the University of South Africa and now a Research Associate Professor at the University of Fort Hare. Mokhele has presented numerous papers at local and international conferences and she has published over 15 articles in South African and international scholarly journals. She was invited to the following international universities as a visiting scholar; Michigan State University, USA; Nanyang Technological University, Singapore; University of Zimbabwe, Kenyatta University, Kenya and Polytechnic of Namibia. She is a recipient of multiple academic awards including the coveted National Research Foundation (NRF) Y2 rating, travel award from the prestigious American Educational Research Association (AERA) and Resilience in Research Award for UNISA women in Research. She also received an award from the Department of Science and Technology as a Distinguished Young Woman Scientist in Social Sciences for her outstanding contribution to building South Africa’s scientific and research knowledge base. Mokhele completed doctorate degree in education at the University of South Africa in 2011.

Lungiswa Nkonki is a Senior Lecturer at Stellenbosch University. She convenes at teaches Economic Evaluation in Healthcare to post graduate students.  In January 2014, the Competition Commission of South Africa appointed her as a panellist for the Private healthcare market enquiry (http://www.compcom.co.za/healthcare-enquiry).  She completed her PhD in Health Economics at the University of Bergen in 2012. Her doctoral dissertation title was: “Health systems challenges in South Africa: Effective and equitable delivery of interventions to improve infant feeding and reduce mother to child transmission of HIV”. Her research interests include economic evaluation of healthcare programmes, measuring inequality in health outcomes, and understanding the determinants of attrition/retention of lay health workers. She has also worked as a specialist scientist at the Medical Research Council. She is a National Research Foundation (South Africa) rated scientist.

Kanshukan is Director: School for Data Science and Computational Thinking at Stellenbosch University.

He was formerly Deputy Dean of Transformation and Strategic Projects in the Faculty of Commerce at the University of Cape Town. Part of this was to lead the Curriculum Change in the context of Commerce at UCT. He was also an Associate Professor of Finance at the Department of Finance and Tax, UCT. His doctoral study was completed at the Department of Systems and Information Engineering, University of Virginia.  His research interests include decision making in consumer lending, credit union models, systemic risk in the banking sector and impact of regulations on financial institutions. His work has been published in the Journal of Banking and Finance, Journal of the Operational Research Society and Annals of Operations Research.

David Bilchitz is a Professor of Fundamental Rights and Constitutional Law at the University of Johannesburg and Director of the South African Institute for Advanced Constitutional, Public, Human Rights and International Law (SAIFAC). He is also Secretary-General of the International Association of Constitutional Law from June 2014 until 2018.  David has a BA (Hons) LLB cum laude from Wits University. He graduated with an MPhil in Philosophy from St John’s College, University of Cambridge in 2001 and with a PhD in law from the same university in 2004. David worked as law clerk to Deputy Judge-President (then) Langa of the South African Constitutional Court in 2000. His book on ‘Poverty and Fundamental Rights: the Justification and Enforcement of Socio-Economic Rights’ was published by Oxford University Press in February 2007. He also has two co-edited books, one of which – titled ‘Human Rights Obligations for Business: Beyond the Corporate Responsibility to Respect?’ – was published by Cambridge University Press and launched at the United Nations library. As at 31 December 2014, he has published ten book chapters, and over 30 journal articles. He is also on the editorial boards of several prestigious journals. Prof. Bilchitz’s academic work focuses on the critical role that law plays in protecting vulnerable within constitutional democracies: his focus is on the field of fundamental rights and, in particular, the content of socio-economic rights, the obligations of business in relation to fundamental rights, the tension between religious freedom and equality, and the rights of animals.

Pradeep Kumar, PhD, is an internationally trained pharmacist, and Associate Professor of Pharmaceutics at the Wits’ Department of Pharmacy and Pharmacology, and  at the Wits Advanced Drug Delivery Platform (WADDP). Pradeep’s doctoral thesis was focused on engineering neural devices for spinal cord injury interventions and was awarded the Most Prestigious PhD Degree Award for his research. In addition, he has established a first-in-the-world computational analysis and programming algorithm for the design of drug delivery devices and polymeric architectures. For the advancement of his discipline, Pradeep was awarded the prestigious Claude Leon Foundation Merit Award (2018), ASRT Young African Researcher Award (2018), and an AGNES’ Junior Researcher Grant funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (2018). In 2018, A/Prof Kumar received the SPER Young Scientist Award at PST2018, Bangkok. Pradeep has proudly presented his research at reputed international conferences across the globe (USA, France, Spain, Australia, Denmark, Canada, Thailand, and India) and is the recipient of Elsevier’s NanoToday (2011) and International Society of Developmental Neuroscience (2012) Awards. Pradeep, an inventor on 4 granted and 11 filed patents, received Wits Innovators Forum’s First-time (2013), Prolific (2014) and International (2016) Inventor Awards for his contributions to innovation in pharmaceuticals (such as a paediatric wafer). A/Prof Kumar has contributed to over 185 high-impact publications, 4 editorials, 2 edited books, 30 book chapters and 110 scientific presentations (H-index: 25). A/Prof Kumar has graduated 7 PhD students and currently supervising 6 doctoral projects. Recently, he featured among the 2018 Mail & Guardian 200 Young South Africans (Category: Science and Technology).

Prof Roula Inglesi-Lotz is a Professor in the Department of Economics, University of Pretoria. She is also the first president of the South African Association for Energy Economics (SAAEE), which was established in 2018 and is comprised of esteemed energy experts in the country. Her research focuses primarily on the interlinkages between energy and the socioeconomic conditions by looking at the impact of changes in demand, pricing structures and the overall energy transition to and from the macroeconomy. She teaches Research Methodology and Econometrics at Honours level and Energy Economics at Masters level (a module that she designed and presented for the first time in the Department of Economics, University of Pretoria in 2015).

She is a member of the South African Young Academy of Sciences (SAYAS) (served as a co-chair in 2020) and a member of the Global Young Academy (GYA) (served as a co-leader of the Women in Science group in 2019/2020). Prof Inglesi-Lotz was named the Distinguished Young Woman Researcher in the Humanities and Social Sciences category of the 2017 DST Women in Science Awards. She is an NRF Y-1 rated researcher. She was selected and participated in the 2019 cohort of the Africa Science Leadership Programme (ASLP) in Future Africa, through which she promotes the need for a polyphony in science communication. She is also affiliated with Future Africa, University of Pretoria.

Dr Sahal Yacoob is an experimental particle physicist. He is currently part of the ATLAS collaboration which discovered the Higgs Boson in 2010 and continues to explore the energy frontier. He is passionate about expanding access to knowledge, resources, and the scientific method while developing an active particle physics group in South Africa. Dr Yacoob is the first South African representative of the international particle physics outreach group (IPPOG).

Dr Yacoob is a former SAYAS Co-Chair and has served on the Executive Committee for three terms.

Dr Eugene Lee Davids holds the position of Senior Scientist at the South African Medical Research Council and Co-Director of the Adolescent Health Research Unit, University of Cape Town. He completed a Bachelor of Psychology, as well as masters and doctoral degree specialising in Child and Family Studies from the University of the Western Cape. Dr Davids later completed a Master of Public Health from the University of Cape Town. His research focuses on the social determinants of adolescent health, decision-making and parenting. In addition, to his scholarly contributions, Dr Davids has a keen interest and passion for the development and capacity building of emerging researchers. He serves as the Emerging Research Coordinator and National Secretary for the South African Association of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Professions (SA-ACAPAP). His passion and interest has led him to being awarded the Mandela-Rhodes Scholarship, being selected as a Donald J Cohen International Scholar in Child and Adolescent Mental Health as well as being nominated as one of the Mail and Guardian Top 200 Young South Africans.

Dr Natasha Ross undertook her undergraduate studies at the University of the Western Cape where she obtained her BSc Chemical Science degree in March, 2008. Her first introduction to research was in 2008 when she developed a nanocomposite biosensor for determining the metabolic profile of anti-retroviral drugs in human serum as her BSc Hons project. For attainment of a Master of Science degree awarded in 2010, she constructed a novel nanocomposite immunosensor for anti-transglutaminase antibody detection, which was a biomarker for coeliac disease (Analytical Letters, 11 (2011) 1956-1966, Journal of Bioactive and Compatible Polymer, 1-11 (2013), doi:10.1177/0883911512472277 and Biomedical Applications of Nanostructured materials, Macmillan Publishers India Limited (2010) 269-264). Dr Ross’s PhD degree (awarded in 2013) focussed on the synthesis of modified nanostructured manganese oxide (MnO) cathode materials for the improvement of the stability and energy storage capacity of Lithium-ion batteries (LIB)  (Electrochimica Acta, 101 (2013) 86–92, Electrochimica Acta, 128 (2014), 178-183 and Journal of Nanomaterials, 613124 (2015), 6).  She has presented her research at various international and national conferences. She is a Lecturer at the Department of Chemistry and a recipient of the University of Michigan (UM)-African Presidential Scholarship for 2015/16 for research exchange visit to the UM Energy Institute. She also teaches grade 11 physical science to learners from previously disadvantaged backgrounds and is one of the academic staff members of SensorLab where she is involved in sensors and energy materials research, as well as in postgraduate co-supervisor.

Dr Moses Basitere is a currently a Senior Lecturer and Coordinator of the Extended Curriculum Program at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT), Chemical Engineering Department. In addition to his leadership role, he is a research lead for poultry slaughterhouse wastewater (PSW) research unit under Bioresource Engineering Research Group. He also has a keen interest in Engineering Education Research with a special focus on integration of emerging technologies to enhance the teaching and learning of Mathematics and Physics. Dr Basitere has displayed commendable potential as a researcher; he has published several articles in accredited journals, book chapters and conference proceedings. He has supervised a number of Masters’ students to completion and is currently supervising several Masters and Doctoral students.

His notable contribution to science has resulted in several accolades awarded to him, including the Faculty of Engineering Teaching Excellence Award, Knowledge Interchangeable and Collaboration grant from the National Research Foundation (NRF) and NRF Thuthuka Funding PhD track. This year Dr Basitere is one of the recipients of the NRF Thuthuka Post PhD Track grant.

Dr Basitere is an advocate for science and his dedication and contribution to community development through mentoring and creating an awareness of science is commendable. He has set-up Saturday and Winter classes to teach Technical Mathematics and Technical Science supporting learners studying at Technical Schools around the CPUT to gain university entrance to Engineering fields.

Dr. Leyla Tavernaro-Haidarian, Ph.D., is a senior research associate at the University of Johannesburg, a leadership development consultant for UNSSC and an education specialist for UNODC. Leyla regularly lectures and keynotes at fora such as TEDx, the US State Department, and NATO Building Integrity. Her areas of expertise include communication, gender, ethics and governance. She is also a published writer with a particular interest in the normative moral theory of Ubuntu. She serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Deliberative Democracy and is a member of the International Association of Media and Communication Research as well as the South African Young Academy of Science. For the Austrian Baha’i Community, she manages the social discourse portfolio of its Office of Public Affairs.

Dr. Thobela Nkukwana is Lecturer: Monogastric Nutrition at the University of Pretoria. Her research interests are on promoting transparency and traceability towards safer production of poultry meat and eggs.

Dr. Thobela Nkukwana obtained her BSc degree (Animal Science Production) at the University of the North, Turfloop (now Limpopo).  She then embarked on her MSc degree in Poultry Science at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, supervised by the world renowned and A-rated poultry scientist Prof. Rob Gous.  As a student,she has worked as a Research Assistant at Ukulinga, UKZN.  After obtaining her MSc, she worked as an Animal Nutritionist at NuTecSA (Pty) in Pietermaritzburg. She has also worked as a lecturer at the University of Fort Hare, a career move spanning nine years.

It was during her tenure at UFH that she embarked on her doctoral studies as part of the NRF capacity building initiative under the PhD track. The PhD was done in collaboration with the University of Stellenbosch.  Dr Nkukwana progressed through the University ranks and held the post of Head of Department (Poultry Science) and also served as a member of Senate, Institutional Forum and Council for three years. She has published widely in international, peer reviewed journals, and one of her papers is currently ranked fourth amongst the Top 25 Hottest Articles in the Livestock Science Journal.

Lindie Koorts is a historian and biographer, who is fascinated by the ability of individuals to shape their environment. I completed my MA in Historical Studies (cum laude) at the University of Johannesburg in 2005, and received my DPhil in History from the University of Stellenbosch in 2010. My postgraduate research focused on DF Malan, the first of the apartheid prime ministers. As part of my studies, I spent a year at the University of Groningen’s Institute for Biography.

In 2014, I published a biography of Malan, in both English and Afrikaans, entitled DF Malan and the Rise of Afrikaner Nationalism and DF Malan en die opkoms van Afrikaner-nasionalisme. It was the first full-length biography of an apartheid prime minister to be published after 1994. The two books were shortlisted for the Sunday Times Alan Paton Award and the KykNET-Rapport Prys vir Nie-Fiksie respectively. This exposure gave me access to a wider, non-academic readership. I am a strong believer in public engagement, and making history accessible to a wider audience. For this reason, I regularly participate in public debates, and I write a bi-weekly column for the Afrikaans daily newspapers.

I am currently a Senior Lecturer in the University of the Free State’s International Studies Group, which is a specialist history unit. My research focuses on Paul Kruger’s Transvaal, and in particular the relationship between capital and the state in a society undergoing rapid modernisation, all within the context of globalisation.

Dr Vhahangwele Masindi is a Research Scientist at Magalies Water where he manages the Research and Development portfolio. He is also a research fellow at the University of South Africa (2016 to date), University of Edinburgh (2018 to date), and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) (2020 to date), as well as a part-time lecturer at the University of Venda (2018 to date). Before joining Magalies Water, he was a principal research scientist at CSIR.

His research initiatives focus on drinking water purification, wastewater treatment, minerals recovery from wastewater, water process optimization and troubleshooting, wastewater beneficiation and valorization, and eco-friendly technologies development. His key area of interest is circular economy, green technology and sustainability towards water resource management. Moreover, his long-term goals include ensuring sustainable development and food security.

His contribution to science has gained him numerous accolades such as the CSIR-Built Environment Emerging Researcher Award, the CSIR Emerging Researcher Award, and the TW Kambule-National Science and Technology forum (NSTF) Emerging Researcher Award. He was a nominee and finalist in Murray & Roberts emerging researchers, NSFT, and Standard Bank rising star awards. He is also a recipient of numerous national and international research grants.

Dr Masindi is registered as a Professional Natural Scientist. He also serves as the editor and editorial board member of various prestigious international journals. His accolades include 2 Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) patents, 50 journal publications, 20 conference proceedings, and 5 book chapters. His H-score in 20 with >1000 citations in 4 years (2016-2020).

Dr Cletos Mapiye obtained his BSc Agriculture (Hons) (2002) and MSc Animal Science (2004) degrees with merit from the University of Zimbabwe and a PhD degree in Animal Science (2010) from the University of Fort Hare. Dr Mapiye’s pre-doctoral career involved stints as a Pasture and Ruminant Research Scientist (2003-2005) at Grasslands Research Station (Ministry of Agriculture, Zimbabwe) and Animal Science Lecturer (2005-2007) at Bindura University of Science Education, Zimbabwe. His post-doctoral career includes his services as a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Animal Production at the National University of Rwanda (2010-2011) and Post-doctoral Fellow in the Meat Lipid Lab at Lacombe Research Centre of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (2011-2013). In November 2013, Dr Mapiye was appointed as a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Animal Science at Stellenbosch University. He contributes to teaching of undergraduate courses in Meat Science and Beef Production, and supervision of graduate students. In addition, he has been guest lecturing and externally examining thesis for many universities in Southern Africa.

Dr Mapiye’s research program focuses on finding sustainable ways of manipulating meat quality and lipid composition to improve meat eating quality, shelf-life and healthfulness. He is a National Research Foundation Y2 (Young Promising) rated scientist with over 80 refereed scientific publications, 5 invited papers and over 45 conference proceedings papers/abstracts. To date, Cletos has supervised/co-supervised 5 MSc and currently supervises/co-supervises 5 MSc and 4 PhD students.

Prof Aletta Millen completed her BSc Sport Science degree, Honours in Biokinetics and MSc degree at Stellenbosch University where she received the Rector’s Medal for academic excellence. She completed her PhD in cardiovascular physiology at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits). Aletta recently completed her MBA degree, with distinction, at the WIts. Prof Millen is currently an Associate Professor in the School of Physiology at Wits. She is a part of a team of researchers in the Cardiovascular Pathophysiology and Genomics Research Unit (CPGRU), which carries out research to increase the understanding of the mechanisms of cardiovascular disease. Within the CPGRU, Prof Millen has developed her own research niche where she drives two independent research thrusts. Firstly, her research is elucidating the contribution and mechanisms of inflammation to subclinical cardiovascular disease. She is also passionate about the prevention and management of chronic diseases in South Africa through lifestyle, hence her second area of research, builds on her early experience with exercise physiology and focuses on the use of exercise in the prevention and management of cardiovascular disease risk and target organ damage in obesity, diabetes and also in states of inflammation. Prof Millen has graduated 2 PhD and 11 MSc students, and she has published more than 35 papers in internationally accredited journals. She has received several competitive grants for her research and was named among the Mail & Guardian top 200 Young South Africans.

Fulufhelo Nemavhola is currently an associate professor and head of department in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the University of South Africa. Fulufhelo was born in the Phadzima Dzumbathoho village in the Limpopo province of South Africa. In addition to being a registered professional engineer (PrEng) with the Engineering Council of South Africa, Fulufhelo is also a chartered engineer (CEng) registered with the Engineering Council of the United Kingdom (ECUK). Fulufhelo graduated with Bachelor of Science (Mechanical Engineering) and Master of Science (Mechanical Engineering) degrees at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. He held various positions, including those of senior engineer and design engineer in private and parastatal companies before joining the academia. Fulufhelo’s interest in academic research then steered him to pursue a doctorate from the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery of the University of Cape Town in December 2010. The PhD degree was studied under the supervision of Prof Thomas Franz, Prof Neil Davies and Dr Laura Dubuis. His research looked into the remodelling heart post myocardial infarction. His research focus is in the areas of mechanobiology, soft tissue mechanics, computational biomechanics and engineering education in open distance e-learning (ODeL). Fulufhelo is involved extensively in research, having authored, co-authored and presented a number of papers in both national and international fora. Fulufhelo has his heart set on the development of rural villages using technology. As such, Fulufhelo is currently involved in various programmes with the aim of developing poor or underprivileged communities.

Jennifer Fitchett is an Associate Professor of Physical Geography in the School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand. She has a BSc in Environmental and Geographical Science and Ocean and Atmospheric Science from the University of Cape Town, a BSc Honours and MSc in Geography from the University of the Witwatersrand, and a PhD in Geography which was completed split-site, co-registered at the University of the Witwatersrand and University College London. She serves on the editorial board of the International Journal of Biometeorology, is an elected member of council of the Society of South African Geographers, and the elected African Councillor of the Executive Board of the International Society of Biometeorology. Her research is situated within the discipline of Biometeorology, exploring the impacts of climate and climatic change, on animal, plant and human communities. This includes research into contemporary changes in the climatology of tropical cyclones, rainfall seasonality and extreme thermal events, analyses of the impacts of climate change on tourism, and investigations of changes plant phenology and plant community assemblages under long- (tens of thousands of years) and short- (decades) time periods. Over the two years, her biometeorological research has extended into the subdiscipline of biometeorology and health, exploring climate change impacts on malaria, and the role of climate in COVID-19 transmission, the latter as a member of the COVID-19 Environmental Reference Group, formed under the auspices of the DSI.

I am a NRF (Y2) rated researcher & lecturer in Physiology, Faculty of Health Sciences of the University of Pretoria. I obtained my PhD in April 2013 prior to which I obtained my Honours degree (Cum Laude) and Master’s degree (Summa Cum Laude). I am a member of South African Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Physiology Society of South Africa and European Respiratory Society. I was awarded a self-initiated scholarship from the Professional Providence Society (2012) and the National Health Laboratory Service Research Trust grant (2013). During my studies I was actively involved in teaching, collaborations and student training. I lectured medical, dentistry and BSc students and co-ordinated modules for  Honours course for Medical Biochemistry. My role on the manuscripts and conference proceedings which I have co-authored include conceptualising projects, conducting molecular based experiments and writing papers for publication. My leadership roles at UP includes chairperson for muscle physiology in the first medical block and course co-ordinator for a 2^nd year module in 2016. I am a reviewer for high impact factor ISI-rated journals and served as a panel member for the review of NRF funding applications. To date I have authored and co-authored 31 publications in peer-review journals. My H-index is 9 with 256 citations and a ResearchGate score of 27.31. I believe that academia provides the perfect platform for both teaching and research and it should be used to provide similar opportunities to all students especially those from less fortunate backgrounds which I can personally relate to.

Naomi Nkealah is a lecturer of English in the Division of Languages, Literacies and Literatures in the School of Education at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. She obtained her PhD in African Literature from the University of the Witwatersrand in 2011 and has since lectured at the University of Limpopo, University of South Africa and now University of the Witwatersrand. Her research specializes in the re-theorisation of African feminisms for contemporary African women and the exploration of representations of gender violence and women’s empowerment in African women’s literature. She has published widely on these subjects in South African journals, including English in Africa, English Academy Review, South African Theatre Journal and Journal of Literary Studies; international journals such as Research in African Literatures and ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature; as well as in edited books such as Globalization, Media and Popular Culture in Nigeria (Lagos: Bahiti & Dalila Publishers, 2016), Style in African Literature: Essays on Literary Stylistics and Narrative Styles (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2012) and Performing Gender in Arabic/African Theater: Between Cultures, Between Gender (Amsterdam: Intercultural Theatre Series No 4, 2009). She currently holds an NRF rating in the category of Y1, positioning her as a leading emerging researcher in her field with great potential to becoming an internationally established scholar. As an academic, she presents papers at national and international conferences, supervises postgraduate students, reviews articles for journals and books for publishers, and examines theses and dissertations for various universities. In addition, she is the chief editor of Imbizo: International Journal of African Literary and Comparative Studies published by Unisa Press. She has won several awards, including the Most Resourceful Staff Member Award from the University of Limpopo (2013), the Golden Key Membership Award from the Golden Key Society (2012), and the DAAD Scholarship for Young Academics and Scientists (2009).

In August 2016 she received the Distinguished Young Woman Scientist Award – Humanities and Social Sciences Category – at the Women in Science Awards 2016 run by the Department of Science and Technology.

Prof Philani Moyo is Director of the Fort Hare Institute for Social and Economic Research (FHISER) at the University of Fort Hare. He holds a PhD in Social Sciences (Politics and International Studies) (University of Leeds, UK), an MA in Human and Sustainable Development (University of Leeds, UK), another MA in Social Policy and Development Studies (University of Fort Hare, South Africa) and a BA Honours (University of Zimbabwe).

Prof Moyo has been an academic at the University of Fort Hare since 2009. Before joining the University of Fort Hare, he held a teaching assistantship position at the University of Leeds (UK) as well as a teaching and research position at the University of Zimbabwe. He has published extensively on food security, climate change, rural and urban livelihoods and devolution of power. He has also done research consultancy work for international NGOs such as Hivos International, the Eastern Cape Provincial Department of Social Development and local governments that include Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality in East London, South Africa. Prof Moyo sits on the Editorial Boards of a number of journals some of which are the Review of African Political Economy and Governance in Africa. He has served as a previous SAYAS Co-Chair.

Sarah Skeen is Associate Professor in Global Health and Co-Director of the Institute for Life Course Health Research at Stellenbosch University. Her research focuses on three areas of child and adolescent mental health and development, namely early childhood development, children and families affected by HIV/AIDS, and adolescent mental health. She has extensive experience in developing, implementing, and evaluating community-based interventions and has worked across a range of East and Southern African countries in partnership with funders, governments, non-governmental organisations and other institutions. Her current work focuses on evidence synthesis of interventions for adolescent health and well-being, and on the development and evaluation of parenting interventions for early and middle childhood. She is also currently a consultant to WHO and UNICEF in adolescent mental health and development.

Emma Charlene Lubaale is an associate professor at the Faculty of Law of Rhodes University. She obtained her LLM and LLD degrees from the University of Pretoria in December 2011 and December 2015 respectively. Prior to joining Rhodes University’s Law Faculty, she taught and researched law at the University of Pretoria and the University of Venda. She is a Y-rated researcher by the National Research Foundation (NRF). In January 2020, she was appointed by the NRF to serve on the NRF Standing Panel for the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) from 2020 to 2023. She has served as a law reviewer for publishers including Springer Nature, Routledge, Palgrave Macmillan, the Pretoria University Law Press, the Journal of Sexual Aggression, Speculum Juris, De Jure, South African Crime Quarterly and Journal of Law, Society and Development. Her current research interests are in criminal law from a domestic perspective, international criminal law, evidence, women and children’s rights.

Dr Mardé Helbig is Senior Lecturer, School of Information and Communication Technology, Griffith University in Australia. She was formerly Senior Lecturer at the Department of Computer Science at the University of Pretoria. Her research focuses on solving dynamic multi-objective optimisation problems using computational intelligence algorithms.  These problems typically have multiple objectives, where at least two objectives are in conflict with one another, and at least one objective changes over time. She obtained an Y1 rating from the NRF in 2016. She is currently the vice-chair of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society (CIS)’s task force on evolutionary multi-objective optimisation, a member of the IEEE CIS Emerging Technologies Technical Committee (ETTC), a member of the IEEE CIS Women in Computational Intelligence (WCI) sub-committee, a member of the IEEE CIS Young Professionals sub-committee and the chair of the IEEE CIS South African Chapter. Before joining the university, she worked at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). In 2013 she was awarded the CSIR Meraka Institute Emerging Researcher Excellence Award and in 2009 the CSIR Meraka Institute Promising Young Researcher Excellence Award.

Dr Tatenda Dalu is a Lecturer at the University of Mpumalanga where he has the opportunity to interact with young upcoming scientists every day, and mentoring their scientific research development. Furthermore, he is STIAS Iso Lomso and TWAS Young Affiliate Fellow. He studied his BSc (2008) and MSc (2012) in Aquatic Ecology at the University of Zimbabwe before moving to Rhodes University for his PhD (2015) and Postdoctoral studies (2015–2017). To date, he has had 140 articles accepted peer-reviewed journal articles, 2 book chapters and has supervised 13 MSc and 1 PhD students to completion. He was made a Research Associate with the South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity due to his exceptional professional involvement and contributions to South Africa aquatic ecology research. Tatenda is an individual who values constant growth, personal development and embraces new challenges. He excels in team settings, learning much whilst also contributing towards team effort. His value for people, and personal and work ethic as well his knowledge and skills make him an exceptional research scientist. His research philosophy is centred on research excellence rather than specifically addressing fundamental or applied research, with the ultimate goal of bridging the gap between the two in the bigger picture. Furthermore, it is his opinion that collaboration is vital for the adequate development of an excellent career in research. Collaborations enable better quality work and facilitate the timely output of research.

Dr Munyaradzi Christopher Marufu is a veterinary parasitologist who obtained a BVSc degree (2006) from the University of Zimbabwe, an MSc degree (2009) with distinction from the University of Fort Hare and a PhD degree (2014) from the University of KwaZulu-Natal. After working at academic and government institutions for about 12 years, he was appointed as a Senior Lecturer and Veterinary Parasitologist in the Department of Veterinary Tropical Diseases (University of Pretoria) in 2019. Dr Marufu is involved in teaching of undergraduate Veterinary Science and Veterinary Nursing courses in Helminthology, ticks and tick-borne diseases, and the supervision of graduate students. In addition, he has been guest lecturing, moderating honours courses and externally examining theses for several universities in South Africa. Dr Marufu’s research focuses on finding sustainable solutions to animal health challenges caused by parasites in different animal production systems. He is a National Research Foundation Y2 (Young Promising) rated scientist. To date, Dr Marufu has supervised/co-supervised 5 MSc and 1 PhD student to completion and currently supervises/co-supervises 6 MSc and 4 PhD students.

Dr Karen Cloete is currently employed as a postdoctoral researcher at the iThemba Laboratory for Accelerator Based Sciences, National Research Foundation, where her research is focused on the biological applications of ion beam techniques. She has authored and co-authored a number of international journal publications in multidisciplinary fields and has also provided editorial assistance for various academic manuscripts and a treatment guideline. She has convened and lectured a module on writing and publishing scientific papers for MSc (MedSci) in Clinical Epidemiology students, taught a course to microbiology honours students on fungal genomic DNA extraction, and has also organized and presented workshops on research supervision and project management, academic writing, publishing, and presentation to postgraduate registrars, clinical consultants, and senior scientists. Her research has been highlighted in popular media and she has also been the recipient of various scholarships and grants. She has served on several committees, as a reviewer for international journals, as a consultant for the Language Centre of Stellenbosch University, and as a scientist for commercial companies. She strongly believes in the power of science to affect positive change and is currently designing new studies on evaluating elemental profiles in human scalp hair related to disease pathology using ion beam analysis techniques.

Dr Cloete has served as a former SAYAS Co-Chair.

Prof. Tjaart Krüger is an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Pretoria. He obtained his PhD (cum laude) in 2011 at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and after a postdoctoral fellowship at the same university he returned to South Africa in 2013 to establish his own research group in molecular biophysics. He is passionate about multidisciplinary research and his own research allows him to work at the confluence of physics, biology, chemistry, mathematics, statistics, and even information technology and engineering. His main research interest is to resolve the molecular details of energy transfer and regulation in the light-harvesting pigment-protein complexes of photosynthetic organisms and to control those processes using shaped light and metallic nanoparticles. To this end, he designs and builds specialised laser spectroscopy instruments.

He has published 40 scientific papers, many of which are in very high impact journals, 2 book chapters, an advanced textbook on optical spectroscopy, and several popular science articles. He has an extensive international collaborative network, which includes one of the 2014 Nobel Laureates in Chemistry. For his research outputs, Prof. Krüger has received several awards, including a fellowship from the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (2015), an NRF Y1 rating (2016), the University of Pretoria’s Exceptional Young Researcher’s Award (2018) and the Royal Academy of South Africa’s Meiring Naude Medal (2019). Since 2014 he has been the chair of the South African Biophysics Initiative. As the father of four children he loves to spend time with his family.

Benita Olivier is a professor in the field of musculoskeletal physiotherapy in the Physiotherapy Department of the University of the Witwatersrand. She is an avid researcher with a high level of research productivity. She has a special interest in the prevention of sports injuries, with a focus on human movement analysis. Benita is the Director of the Wits Sport and Health (WiSH) Research Group, a recognised research entity in the University of the Witwatersrand. She established the Wits Physiotherapy Movement Analysis Laboratory in 2010 and has molded it into a lab that advocates research excellence.  In 2013, she completed her PhD in the area of cricket fast bowling injury prevention and in 2019, she graduated, with distinction, with a second masters in Movement Analysis. Her contribution to scholarship and academic citizenship is visible in many spheres including publication and postgraduate supervision. She is a National Research Foundation Y-rated researcher and her passion for research and creating impact, what she often refers to as “changing the world”, has been recognised through awards such as the Department of Science and Innovation-SARIMA Early Career Excellence Research Management Award and the Johannesburg Women in Sports Confederation President’s Award in 2020. She was second runner up in the Department of Science and Technology’s Distinguished Young Woman in Science award in 2018. As a mother of three young boys, she aspires to live a balanced life, with a strong sense of integrity and a drive to positively contribute to the lives of others.

Amy Slogrove is a paediatrician and PhD epidemiologist in the position of Associate Professor at Stellenbosch University Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences in the Department of Paediatrics & Child Health and Research Lead for the Ukwanda Centre for Rural Health based at the rural Worcester Campus of Stellenbosch University. Her research program centers around pregnancy and early life exposures and their impact on infant, child and adolescent outcomes with a particular focus on HIV and antiretroviral drug exposure in utero. She is currently a Fellow of the South African Young Academy of Science and holds competitive funding from the Fogarty International Centre and National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the US National Institutes of Health as well as the International AIDS Society. Recently Amy has lead the writing of a WHO and UNICEF policy brief on Nurturing Care for Children Affected by HIV, is providing expert input to the WHO on guidelines for children who are HIV exposed as well as clinical trials in pregnant women living with HIV. Amy provides a weekly specialist child health service for a structurally disadvantaged community in the rural Western Cape and is a strong advocate for local clinical and epidemiologic research skills capacitation amongst early career researchers.

Dr. Shazrene Mohamed is a computational astrophysicist working at the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO). She completed her undergraduate studies in Astronomy, Astrophysics and Mathematics at Harvard University and obtained her PhD in Astrophysics from Oxford University. After two years as an Argelander Fellow in Bonn, Germany, she moved to Cape Town where she is currently an NRF Research Career Advancement (RCA) fellow.  She is a Rhodes Scholar, a NRF P-rated researcher and recipient of the South African Institute of Physics (SAIP) Silver Jubilee Medal. Her research primarily focuses on supercomputer simulations of evolved stars to investigate how they interact with their surroundings and with each other, particularly, how mass is transferred from one star to another. These systems are important as they are thought to be the progenitors of novae and supernovae explosions.

Dr Munyaradzi Christopher Marufu is a veterinary parasitologist who obtained a BVSc degree (2006) from the University of Zimbabwe, an MSc degree (2009) with distinction from the University of Fort Hare and a PhD degree (2014) from the University of KwaZulu-Natal. After working at academic and government institutions for about 12 years, he was appointed as a Senior Lecturer and Veterinary Parasitologist in the Department of Veterinary Tropical Diseases (University of Pretoria) in 2019. Dr Marufu is involved in teaching of undergraduate Veterinary Science and Veterinary Nursing courses in Helminthology, ticks and tick-borne diseases, and the supervision of graduate students. In addition, he has been guest lecturing, moderating honours courses and externally examining theses for several universities in South Africa. Dr Marufu’s research focuses on finding sustainable solutions to animal health challenges caused by parasites in different animal production systems. He is a National Research Foundation Y2 (Young Promising) rated scientist. To date, Dr Marufu has supervised/co-supervised 5 MSc and 1 PhD student to completion and currently supervises/co-supervises 6 MSc and 4 PhD students.

Prof Tricia Naicker is an associate professor and the current Director at the Catalysis and Peptide Research Unit at University of KwaZulu Natal. She specialises in method development within the synthesis of biologically important intermediates/drugs within the field of antibacterials.
Naicker is also the current editor in chief for the South African Journal of Chemistry and serves as an exco member for Organisation for Women in Science for the Developing World South African National Chapter.

Dr Nosiphiwe “Nosi” Ngqwala is currently a lecturer at Rhodes University in the faculty of Pharmacy. As a young academic she is interested in contributing in the intellectual pool of the country as a result after her PhD she decided to become a lecture and a researcher working with the Environmental health and biotechnology research group (EHBRG) where she supervises Masters and Honors students.  Although she is from Mount Frere Eastern Cape, she has a deep-rooted love for South Africa and passionate about the society, which have motivated her to be a part of the solutions to the economic, environmental and social problems affecting South Africa. Her desire to make a difference led her to be the founder and a co-coordinator of two NPOs: Siyakhana youth development, which focuses on youth development in rural areas in Eastern Cape and KwaZulu Natal Provinces. The second is Children of the soil (COTS), focusing on working with schools to address climate change issues in Grahamstown. She is also a vice chairperson of Young Water Professionals (YWP) in the Eastern Cape “Programme is focused on bringing people working in or interested in the water sector together in a meaningful way” and an active member of the Activate Innovation Leadership Program, a national network of young leaders equipped to drive change for the public good across South Africa.

Dr Usisipho Feleni is a Senior Lecturer at the Nanotechnology and Sustainability Research Unit (NanoWS) in the School of Science, University of South Africa (UNISA). She holds an MSc Nanoscience and a PhD Chemistry degree from the University of the Western Cape (UWC). Her research expertise is in the development of chalcogenide quantum dots as tuneable electroactive platforms for the fabrication of biosensors, for biomedical and environmental analysis. She also has current research interest on electrochemical membranous reactors for water purification. She has published more than 20 papers and supervised 7 MSc students. She has given oral presentations at international scientific conferences and symposia, and has done several popular media interviews on the impact of her research work. She is an Associate Member of the Royal Society of Chemistry (AMRSC), as well as, a Full Member of the Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD) and the International Society of electrochemistry (ISE). She is a Visiting Lecturer for the MSc Nanoscience degree programme at UWC. Her recent awards include the L’Oréal-UNESCO for Women in Science Sub-Saharan Africa Doctoral Fellowship Award in 2016 and the South African Women in Science TATA Doctoral Fellowship Award in 2016. Dr Feleni also, has expertise in small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) spectroscopy. She has research collaborations at the Biosensors and Bioelectronics Centre at Linkoping University in Sweden, the University of the Western Cape Sensor Laboratories (SensorLab) and the Tianjin Polytechnic University (TJPU) in China.

Prof Reza Malekian is an Associate Professor and head of Advanced Sensor Networks Research Group in the Department of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering at the University of Pretoria (UP). Before joining UP, he was with the University of “St. Paul the Apostle” in Macedonia.

Prof. Malekian’s research is focused on Internet of Things, Sensors and smart cities. He is particularly interested in design and developments of industrial applications in the area of E-health, intelligent transportation systems, mine safety, water management, and agriculture.

He is registered as a chartered engineer with the Engineering Council of the UK, a rated researcher with the NRF, a senior member of the IEEE, and a Fellow of the British Computer Society.

Prof. Malekian was a guest professor or visiting professor in many international universities such as University of Porto (Portugal), Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium), Aarhus University (Denmark), University of Maribor (Slovenia), Vilnius University (Lithuania), and University of St. Paul the Apostle (Macedonia) in the past two years.

From 2013-2016, he was a management committee member of “Autonomous Control for a Reliable Internet of Services (ACROSS)”, European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST).

Dustin van der Haar is an Associate Professor in the Academy of Computer Science and Software Engineering at the University of Johannesburg. He is also a member of the British Computer Society and the South African Institute for Computer Scientists and Information Technologists (SAICSIT). He obtained his PhD degree in 2014 on using physiological signals such as ECG and EEG for authentication, before which he completed his masters on face recognition-based monitoring in video conferencing. His teaching and research interests include biometrics, computer vision and machine learning, and he has collaborated with colleagues at multiple universities. So far, Dustin has published 28 journal articles and 18 peer-reviewed conference proceedings both nationally and internationally in applied artificial intelligence within the cybersecurity, digital forensics, sports, medicine and lifestyle domains. He has managed to secure three scholarships from Telkom, two NRF grants (Thuthuka and KIC) and has received best paper awards at five international conferences. The vision of his research intends on empowering users by bridging the gap of interaction between people and technology in their daily lifestyle using pattern recognition. Current key projects include creating methods for face anti-spoofing in face recognition systems, director success prediction, automated erythrocyte counts in fish blood smears, sports player pose analysis (such as ballet and cricket) in video footage, deriving food nutrition from photos and threat and violence detection in video surveillance.

You can find out more at http://dustin.vanderhaar.co.za

Dr Srila Roy is Associate Professor in Sociology at the University of the Witwatersrand. She has a BA in Philosophy from the University of Delhi and a MA in Philosophy and Social Theory and PhD in Sociology, both from the University of Warwick. Before joining Wits in 2014, she was Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Nottingham where she continues to be Honorary Assistant Professor. She is an Associate Editor of the Journal of South Asian Development, and serves on the editorial board of The Sociological Review, and the council of the South African Sociological Association. She has held visiting fellowships at the Delhi School of Economics, the Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi, the University of Johannesburg, the Universidad de Valparaiso in Chile, and also acted as an external expert to the Bergen Summer School on Global Development Challenges.

Dr. Roy uses a postcolonial and transnational feminist lens to research a number of themes including gender and sexuality; cultural memory, violence and trauma; the affective economies of social movements; and the politics of development and neoliberalism, much of which takes as its starting point the contemporary socio-political history of India/South Asia. She is the author of Remembering Revolution: Gender, Violence and Subjectivity in India’s Naxalbari Movement (OUP, 2012), the editor of New South Asian Feminisms (Zed, 2012), and the co-editor of New Subaltern Politics (OUP 2015).

Dr Sarah Fawcett is a Lecturer in the Department of Oceanography at the University of Cape Town (UCT). She received her undergraduate Honours degree from Harvard University in 2006 and her Ph.D. from Princeton University in 2012. Dr. Fawcett’s research is focused on understanding the complex relationships between biogeochemical fluxes and primary productivity in the ocean on a variety of scales, with implications for past, present, and future climate, ecosystem structure and function, ocean fertility, and global biogeochemical cycles. Her principle tool is precise and novel measurements of the stable isotopes of nitrogen, and she is currently developing a marine isotope laboratory at UCT that will be the first of its kind in Africa. Dr. Fawcett works on questions of global relevance, such as the role of the Southern Ocean in past and present climate, as well as of local importance, such as water quality and ecosystem health in False Bay. In 2017, she was awarded an NRF P-rating, which recognizes that she is “likely to become a future international leader in [her] field, on the basis of exceptional potential demonstrated in research performance and output during [her] early career”. In 2017, she received the South African Network for Coastal and Oceanic Research (SANCOR) Young Researchers Award and a Claude Leon Merit Award for Early-Career Researchers, and was named one of the Mail and Guardian’s Top 200 Young South Africans. In 2018, she was a recipient of the UCT College of Fellows Young Researcher Award.

Dr Tshitangoni has more than 16 years experience in Environmental Management and Rural Development. After completing his Bachelor of Environmental Science degree, he chose to apply his knowledge and skills in the environmental consulting arena. He founded Wandma Consulting Services and worked for five (5) years before joining the KZN Department of Environmental Affairs. He worked in Gauteng Department of Agriculture and Rural Development before being appointed by the National Department of Environmental Affairs where he is currently serving as a Director: Land Remediation. He led the team that developed documentations in preparation for bringing Part 8 (Contaminated Land Provision) of the Waste Act into effect.

His academic qualifications includes: Diploma in Project Management, Diploma in Financial Management, B. Env.Sc, Hons, Masters and PhD in Rural Development. He has successfully supervised a Masters student. Currently he is co-promoting two PhD candidates at the Institute for Rural Development at the University of Venda. He has published numerous research papers in peer reviewed scientific journals and presented papers in National and International Conferences such as International Committee on Contaminated Land in the United States of America, Australia; Chrysotile Asbestos meeting in Switzerland. His research interest includes: Sustainable Rural Development, Governance, Community Participation and Engagement, Land Reform. Rural Planning and Development.

He held many positions of responsibility which includes: Public relation officer of Environmental Science society at the University of Venda. He is a member of Institute of Environment and Recreation Management, a member of Institute of Waste Management of Southern Africa.

Prof Makondelele Makatu is one of the SAYAS Co-Chairs. She is a Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Venda (UNIVEN). She obtained her doctoral degree from the University of Pretoria (UP). Prior to that, she had received her education at UNIVEN, University of South Africa (UNISA) and University of Maastricht, the Netherlands. In her quest for new and innovative ideas to deploy in her academic work, Prof Makatu applied for and received a EUROSA scholarship which enabled her to spend a month at the University of Antwerp in Belgium. She completed the Teaching Advancement at Universities (TAU) fellowship programme, offered by the University of Johannesburg. Prof Makatu is one of the 2016 Africa Science Leadership (ASLP) fellows and a full member of the Organisation for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD). Over the years, she participated in many academic and community development initiatives, capacity building and mentoring activities. She particularly notes her involvement in the household vulnerability to food and water insecurity project from 2013-2014, which the Financial and Fiscal Commission (FFC) and Food, Agriculture, Natural Resources and Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN) funded and was implemented in Thulamela Municipality of Limpopo Province by the Institute for Rural Development at UNIVEN. As the frontline field coordinator of the project, it opened many doors for her to learn directly about household vulnerability, common coping strategies and understanding the causes through the lenses of children, youth, adults and community leaders. Apart from this work, her other research projects have focused on widows’ bereavement and related rituals, siblings of mentally retarded children, coping with special health care needs, parental support towards adolescents’ pregnancy and adolescents and financial stress in the family. Currently she is coordinating a project focusing on developing responsible citizens amongst in-school youth for the benefit of the society. Prof Makatu has successfully supervised and co-supervised eight Masters and three PhD students. Furthermore, she serves as an external examiner for Psychology Masters dissertations of students registered at various universities in South Africa. An author and co-author of peer-reviewed and accredited journal articles. Prof Makatu believes her star in the academic arena will continue to rise.

Prof Mzukisi Njotini is an Associate Professor in the Department of Private Law, Faculty of Law, University of Johannesburg. Before joining the University of Johannesburg, he joined was Director: School of Law and Professor in the Department of Mercantile Law at the University of Limpopo. Prof Njotini’ research interests are in the fields of Cyber Law, Law and Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). Prof Njotini has published extensively and is the author of a number of journal articles and cases notes in high-impact journals. Prof Njotini post-doctoral research with the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, Faculty of Law, Oxford University. Currently, he is a Committee Member for the Review of Applications Submitted in the CPRR, CSUR & Y-Rated Programmes for the National Research Foundation (NRF).

Dr Rory Pilossof is senior lecturer at the University of Free State, in the Department of Economics. This appointment contributes to my profile as a scholar and is recognition of the multidisciplinary elements of my work. In 2017 I was awarded an Advanced Newton Fellowship for a three-year research project into labour and labour migration in southern Africa and a visiting research fellowship at the University of Kent, UK.

He enrolled at the University of Cape Town (UCT) in 2003, where he earned support via the Charles Struben Scholarship, an Ernest Oppenheimer Trust Bursary, and Beit Trust Emergency Support. In 2007 he began his PhD at the University of Sheffield on white farming discourse and identity, funded by the highly competitive Overseas Research Studentship.  His research there was supported by the Royal Historical Society Research Funding, the Excellence Exchange Scheme, and the Petrie Watson Exhibition.

After his PhD he undertook a postdoctoral position at the University of Pretoria (UP), where he turned his thesis into a monograph, The Unbearable Whiteness of Being: Farmers’ Voices From Zimbabwe, (2012) published with the University of Cape Town Press and Weaver Press in Zimbabwe.

A/Prof Fanelwa Ajayi-Ngece is one of the SAYAS Co-Chairs and is a senior lecturer at the Chemistry Department and a research leader at the Enzyme Sensor Laboratory, SensorLab at the University of the Western Cape (UWC). She teaches Physical Chemistry at second, third year and honours level and is involved in postgraduate research supervisions. A/Prof Ajayi-Ngece has been at UWC for the past 15 years during which she completed both her undergraduate and postgraduate studies, and later her PhD in 2011. She specializes in the development of HIV and TB treatment drug metabolism sensors and the synthesis of various green method synthesized conducting polymeric and metallic nanomaterials and finding biological applications for them. Ajayi-Ngece has recently been a Visiting Professor at the University of Missouri, Columbia Campus in the USA and the University of Cergy Pontoise in France. She is also an advisory board member of Cambridge Scholars Publishing, a board member of Team Buntu Africa, and a member of ISE, SACI and WASET.

A/Prof Ajayi-Ngece is the founder of AmaQawe ngeMfundo a non-profit organization aimed at providing on-site STEM experiments for learners in marginalized communities. She is also the co-founder of KasiMaths a scalable low cost mathematic HUB for learners in marginalized communities established after she and her team won first prize at the prestigious TechWomen Programme in Silicon Valley. She has recently been named one of South Africa’s Inspiring Fifty Women in STEM in South Africa. She is passionate about STEM education and considers herself an educational activist and motivational speaker dealing with various STEM educational topics.

Olanrewaju Oladimeji is an epidemiologist at the Department of Public Health, Walter Sisulu University.  He is an NRF-Y1 rated researcher and a visiting scholar at the Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, USA.  He graduated with a medical degree from the College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, Nigeria, and subsequently completed his master’s degree in epidemiology and medical statistics from the same institution. He obtained a PhD in Public Health Medicine from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. He later received a prestigious Fogarty Global Health award from the Fogarty International Center/National Institute of Health for his postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, USA https://connects.catalyst.harvard.edu/Profiles/display/Person/148771. He was involved in the implementation of national TB and HIV surveys in sub-Saharan Africa countries.  He has published several articles in DHET-accredited journals, and the impact of his research is reflected in many high-profile citations (Google Scholar: 16,526 and Web of Science: 15, 548). His current h-index is 28, and his i10-index is  41 (Google Scholar). He serves as an academic editor for PLOS One and associate editor for Biomedical Central. He has affiliations with several universities, where he supervises postgraduate students and serves in various academic committees. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH), a Fellow of the African Scientific Institute (ASI), a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the American Public Health Association (APHA) and the American Thoracic Society (ATS).

A/Prof Oladapo Adeyemi Aremu is a Senior Lecturer at DST Centre of Excellence in Indigenous Knowledge Systems, North West University (Mafikeng Campus), where he teaches undergraduate modules in indigenous Science and Technology. He obtained his MSc (Ethnobotany cum lauda, 2010) and PhD (Botany, 2012) degrees from UKZN. His research focuses on the documentation, bioactivity testing and safety evaluation of South African medicinal plants. Adeyemi also has interest on the application of low-cost and indigenous approaches for enhancing the productivity and conservation of plants with medicinal and nutritional values. He is an highly-motivated and dedicated emerging scientist with a track record of academic excellence. He has authored/co-authored 70 peer-reviewed articles (985 citations, h-index of 14 and i10-index of 25 – Google Scholar, 20/08/24). Adeyemi has successfully mentored/co-supervised 9 Honours and one MSc (cum laude) students and currently supervising more than 10 postgraduate students. He is an editorial board member for South African Journal of Botany and regularly reviews manuscripts/proposals for more than 10 ISI-rated international journals, national and international funding organisation. In recognition of his academic achievement and contribution to science in South Africa, Adeyemi was awarded the National Research Foundation (NRF) Y2-rating in 2016. He is also a recipient of NRF Knowledge Interchange and Collaboration Travel Grant (April, 2016), selected as a participant in the High-level Capacity Strengthening Internship Programme in Systems Thinking for Emerging Researcher (August, 2016) and the Claude Leon Fellowship (2013-2014). He is actively involved in various community engagement activities in KwaZulu-Natal and North West Provinces.

Jo Vearey is an Associate Professor with the African Centre for Migration & Society, University of the Witwatersrand. Her research interests focus on urban health, public health, migration and health, the social determinants of health, HIV, informal settlements, sex work, and local level responses. In 2014, Jo received a Friedel Sellschop Award from the University of the Witwatersrand for outstanding young researchers and was awarded a British Council Researcher Links Travel Award to spend time at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

She has served on the SAYAS Executive Committee.

Dr Tozama Qwebani-Ogunleye is currently the Project Manager at the Vaal University of Technology in a start up company called Dihlare Pty Ltd. The company provides the ideal vehicle to authenticate traditional medicines in order to ultimately produce them for community consumption. In addition to her leadership role at Dihlare, she heads a research group where she supervises the next generation of scientists, funded through her National Research Foundation (NRF) Thuthuka Post-PhD track research grant. Dr Qwebani-Ogunleye is an advocate for science and has delivered many science talks, some on invitation, at high schools and other platforms. She was a member of the NRF Role Modelling Campaign aimed at encouraging high school learners to pursue studies in the STEMI fields and create awareness about the importance of PhDs to knowledge creation and social-economic factors.

Her notable contribution to science has resulted in several accolades awarded to her, including the 2011 DST Young Women in Science Award from the Department of Science and Technology and TATA Africa. In 2016 she was the Mail and Guardian Top 200 Young South Africans in 2018 she is the recipient of the TechWomen Fellowship. This is an Initiative of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. It is a platform for emerging women leaders in STEMI and the award encompasses a one month working visit to the San Francisco’s Silicon Valley. This is then followed by a one week program in Washington DC, where the awardee participates in discussions, forums and cultural events. The discussions normally rotate around Women in Science and Leadership

Prof Puleng Segalo is a Fulbright scholar currently holding the position of Head of Research and Graduate Studies in the College of Human Sciences at the University of South Africa. Her research work analyzes South African women’s narratives of survival and resistance pre, during and post-apartheid, contrasting testimonies offered by women to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), narratives spoken in interviews and focus groups, and embroidered stories that women stitch onto fabric to tell another tale of survival and resistance. Her scholarship focuses on the post-apartheid struggles that women engage in, in freeing themselves now from the shackles of patriarchy. She has dedicated her work toward the advancement of women in South Africa, at the level of economics, education and also their deep psychological sense of purpose and community. In addition to being an NRF rated researcher, Prof Segalo has received recognition for her research work in the form of awards and invitations as a guest speaker at a number of national and international academic forums and popular media. In 2013 she was awarded the University of South Africa Principal Prize for Excellence in Research and in 2014 named the Distinguished Young Woman Scientist of the year by the National Department of Science and Technology.

Dr Hlumani Ndlovu is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Cape Town in the Department of Integrative Biomedical Sciences. His research is focused on using cutting-edge technology to identify the molecular factors that drive inflammation and tissue pathology. His work focuses specifically on tuberculosis and liver-related diseases. He is a NRF Y-rated scientist. He was awarded the NSTF TW-Kambule Emerging Researcher award in 2019.

Chris L. de Wet completed his studies at UJ (then RAU) and the University of Pretoria. He is currently Associate Professor of New Testament and Early Christian Studies in the Department of Biblical and Ancient Studies, at UNISA. He is an international expert on ancient Greek and Roman slavery and labour exploitation, and has published two monographs on the topic. His first book, Preaching Bondage: John Chrysostom and the Discourse of Slavery in Early Christianity was published in 2015 with the University of California Press, Berkeley. His second monograph entitled, The Unbound God: Slavery and the Formation of Early Christian Thought appeared in 2017 with Routledge. His next research project deals with ancient Greek and Roman medicine and medical discourse and practice related to gender, ageing, and disability. He is also part of an international research team working on religious conflict and violence, which holds a R5-million grant with the Australian Research Council. He has also authored 55 academic articles and book chapters. He is the current president of the New Testament Society of Southern Africa and also editor of the accredited academic periodical, the Journal of Early Christian History. He is part of the editorial team of the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Households in the Ancient World, and executive editor of the forthcoming 2-volume Routledge Handbook of Slavery in the Biblical World. He has given guest lectures and keynote addresses at Oxford University, University of Helsinki, University of California, Australian Catholic University, University of Montreal and University of Ottawa. He holds an NRF Y1 rating.

Rose Hayeshi (PhD) is an Associate Professor at the DST/NWU Preclinical Drug Development Platform, North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa. She holds a PhD in Biochemistry with experience in the field of pharmaceutical sciences gained through training and research positions held in Zimbabwe, Sweden, The Netherlands and South Africa.  Fifty percent of her time is spent on research and academic responsibilities as an Associate Professor. The other fifty percent is spent as Study Director for preclinical testing in compliance with OECD Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) guidelines. Her research interests are in preclinical testing for drug development as well as in drug metabolism and drug transport.

Prior to joining the North-West University, she worked as a Senior Researcher at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). In 2014, she was nominated for the Emerging Research Award at the CSIR Materials Science and Manufacturing Excellence Awards and in 2011, she received the award for the Most Valuable Contribution in the CSIR Polymers and Composites.

Rose is a fellow of the Africa Science Leadership Programme and alumnus of the DAAD Dialogue on Innovative Higher Education Strategies Programme. She is also co-founder and co-director of “Contemporary Africans Mentoring”, a not for profit programme for young African Women.

Mmaki Jantjies is an Associate Professor in Information Systems at the University of the Western Cape. Prof Jantjies has served as a Head of department at two South African universities. She holds a PhD in Computer Science and has supervised to completion Masters and PhD students. She teaches and also supervises research students in the UWC department of Information Systems.

Her research focuses on technology for development, having conducted studies on mobile systems design and adoption in education, health and small businesses. She has been recognised for her study on developing multilingual mobile learning applications to support STEM education in South African multilingual schools. Prof Jantjies continues to publish in local and international academic journals and conferences. She is passionate about science communication and has published her work in public platforms such as Popular Mechanics, Fast Company and CNBC.

Prof Jantjies has served as the South African delegate representative to W20 in 2017 and 2018. She is a member of local and international research committees which include the Equals research group. Prof Jantjies has been awarded different fellowships such as the Aspen New Voices in Development fellowship. She has been recognised as one of the 50 people who globally help make the Internet a better place by Mozilla Foundation, Mail and Guardian leading young South Africans under 35 years and many other local and international awards.

Prof Jantjies working with UN Women and Mozilla foundation started technology clubs for girls, boys and co-education clubs which are after school clubs where children from disadvantaged communities come to learn about the basics of digital literacy, software development as well as Internet security, working with UWC students from various universities who teach on the programmes. She further founded a non-profit organization Peo Ya Phetogo that teaches teachers digital literacy skills to impact them with children across schools.

Prof. Yanxia Sun got her DTech in Electrical Engineering, Tshwane University of Technology, South Africa and PhD in Computer Science, University Paris-EST, France in 2012. She has 9 years teaching and research experience. Currently she is serving as an Associate Professor and Head of Department: Electrical and Electronic Engineering Science, University of Johannesburg. She has lectured seven courses in the universities. Currently she is supervising six PhD students and two MTech/MEng students. Yanxia Sun is doing research in Particle Swarm Optimization, Neural Network, Nonlinear Dynamics, Control Systems, and Renewable Energy. She published 42 papers including 14 ISI master indexed journal papers. She was awarded NRF rating Y2 (2015-2020) and obtained the NRF incentive grant. She is an IEEE member and reviewer for several international journals and conferences. She was the principal investigator/co-principle investigator of four research Grants.

Nomusa Makhubu is an associate professor in Art History and deputy dean of transformation in Humanities at the University of Cape Town. She was the recipient of the ABSA L’Atelier Gerard Sekoto Award in 2006 and the Prix du Studio National des Arts Contemporain, Le Fresnoy in 2014. She received the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) African Humanities Program fellowship award and was an African Studies Association (ASA) Presidential fellow in 2016. In 2017, she was also a UCT-Harvard Mandela fellow at the Hutchins Centre for African and African American Research, Harvard University. Recognising the need for mentorship and collaborative practice in socially responsive arts, she founded the Creative Knowledge Resources project. She co-edited a Third Text Special Issue: ‘The Art of Change’ (2013) and co-curated with Nkule Mabaso the international exhibition, Fantastic, in 2015 and The stronger we become in 2019 at the 58th Venice Biennale in Italy

Lembe Magwaza is an Associate Professor in the School of Agricultural, Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. He has more than 15 years of research experience and eight years of lecturing at institutions of higher learning, seven of which were with the University of KwaZulu-Natal. His research interests are in Postharvest Biology and Technology, which involves developing methods and protocols for preserving fruits and vegetable quality and reducing losses from harvest until these products reach the consumers’ table. His research includes characterisation, improving quality and quality of food products from farm to fork. It also includes identifying appropriate genotypes that can withstand the inevitable changes in climate. His secondary interest is in Plant Physiology, in an attempt to understand the mechanisms of how food crop plants respond to the environment. Due to the complexity of the issues involved, his main belief is in establishing and sustaining collaborations to develop sustainable agricultural practices and influence policies in this field. Magwaza is a Y-rated researcher by the National Research Foundation. He has published more than 85 articles in peer-reviewed journals, five book chapters and presented more than 20 papers in international conferences. Magwaza has supervised and graduated eight PhDs, twelve  MSc and six Honours students. In 2018 and again in 2019, Magwaza was presented with the awards for being in the Top 10 Young Published Researcher at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. In 2019, he was also presented with the Top 30 Most Published Researcher Award by the University of KwaZulu-Natal.