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  • Dr. Marcellin Atemkeng (Rhodes University) is a mathematician and computer scientist with a PhD from Rhodes University (2017). His research concentrates on big data, statistical signal processing, artificial intelligence, and modern astronomical data processing and analysis. His work is funded by Rhodes University RC grants and the NRF. Dr. Atemkeng is a member of the South African Institute of Computer Scientists and Information Technologists and is registered as a professional physicist at the South African Institute of Physics. Dr. Atemkeng was awarded the Kambule Doctoral Award at the Deep-learning Indaba in 2019, recognising and encouraging excellence in research and writing by doctoral candidates at African universities in any area of computational and statistical sciences. He also received the Mathematical Sciences Early Career Fellowship Award in 2022. He holds a Y2 rating from the NRF.

  • Dr. Hendrik Auret is both a professional architect and a Senior Lecturer at the University of the Free State (UFS) and obtained his PhD from the UFS in 2015. His research interests revolve around architectural moments that reveal the concerned relationships between dwellers and their emplaced existence as instances of care, with the long-term goal of developing the art of care into a mature, nuanced, and venturesome approach within the field of architectural phenomenology. Dr. Auret serves as chairperson of the Permit Committee of the Free State Provincial Heritage Resources Authority. He holds a Y2 rating from the NRF.

  • Dr. Moses Basitere (University of Cape Town) is a Chemical Engineer with a PhD from the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT). His research interests are in chemical engineering with an emphasis on water and wastewater treatments using biological processes, and in engineering education with an emphasis on the integration of technology in teaching and learning. In 2019, Dr. Basitere was nominated as one of the 10 young scientists to join the South African Young Academy of Science (SAYAS). He was awarded a National Research Foundation (NRF) Research Excellence Award for Early Career/Emerging Researchers in 2021. Dr. Basitere is collaborating in an international partnership with two universities in Eastern Europe and is the principal investigator in the Bioresource Engineering Research Group in the area of water and wastewater.

  • Professor Andy Carolin (University of Johannesburg) has a PhD in English literature from the University of Johannesburg (2017). He is the author of a monograph titled Post-Apartheid Same-Sex Sexualities: Restless Identities in Literary and Visual Culture (Routledge 2021), which received the UJ Vice Chancellor Award for Book of the Year (2022). He is also the recipient of the UJ Vice Chancellor’s Award for Teaching Excellence (2022). His research is located in the field of literary and cultural studies, and it focuses especially on the intersections between race, gender, sexuality, and history. He holds a Y2 rating from the NRF.

  • Dr. Felix Dube (University of Cape Town) is a medical microbiologist with a PhD from the University of Cape Town. His research focuses on the effect of the human microbiome and antimicrobial resistance on respiratory infections, especially in resource-limited African settings, using novel metagenomics and bioinformatics tools. He is a UK Royal Society and AAS Future Leader of African Independent Research (FLAIR) research fellow, and lecturer in molecular and cell biology in the Faculty of Science, UCT. His work is funded by, among others, the Cambridge-Africa ALBORADA Research Fund (2021), the NRF Competitive Support for Unrated Researchers (CSUR, 2023), as well as the NRF/Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) Lead Agency Award (2023). He is also a recipient of the coveted Robert Austrian Award in Pneumococcal Vaccinology (2020) and was recently selected as a DHET Future Professor Fellow.

  • Dr. Simbarashe Gukurume (Sol Plaatje University) is a sociologist with a PhD from the University of Cape Town (2018). His research interests collectively contribute to an overarching theme of youth subjectivities and how these intersect in complex ways with various aspects of everyday life such as politics, livelihoods, and transitions. Dr. Gukurume was awarded the African Peacebuilding Network Research Fellowship (2021-2022) by the Social Sciences Research Council (SSRC), Carnegie Corporation, New York, USA, and the African Humanities (AHP) Fellowship (2021-2022).

  • Professor Priscilla Gutura (University of Pretoria) is an Associate Professor who holds a PhD in Social Work from the University of Fort Hare (2014). She is a registered social worker with the South African Council for Social Services Professions. Her research career commenced with her postdoctoral research, which focused on the impact of social grants on reducing poverty and inequality. This shaped her scholarly focus and launched her gender-oriented research career. Her research aims to explore how social protection can realise gender equality outcomes and empower women to reduce gender-based violence. In 2017, she was selected for the NRF-UP Mentorship Programme for Black Academics. She is an assistant editor of Ubuntu: Journal of Conflict and Social Transformation. She is a recipient of the Vice Chancellor’s Exceptional Young Researchers’ Award of the University of Pretoria (2022). Prof. Gutura holds a Y2 rating from the NRF.

  • Professor Hlatshwayo (University of Johannesburg) is an Associate Professor (Worker Education and Labour Studies). His research concentrates on the trade union responses to technological innovations and the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution, platform work, immigrant and migrant workers, public transport, higher education, worker education, precarious forms of work, social movements, and non-governmental organisations. He has received grants from the National Research Foundation (NRF) and the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIHSS). Hlatshwayo is the 2018 winner of the Review of African Political Economy (ROAPE) Journal Ruth First Prize. Hlatshwayo has more than 50 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters as outputs. He is co-editor (with Aziz Choudry) of the Pluto Press book, Just Work? Migrant Workers, Globalization, and Resistance (2016).

  • Dr. Anna-Marie Jansen van Vuuren (Tshwane University of Technology) is the Postgraduate Studies Chair at TUT’s Motion Picture Production programme. She holds a PhD in creative writing, specialising in screenwriting and film studies, from the University of Pretoria (2016). Dr. Jansen van Vuuren is a film historian who documents various aspects of the contemporary South African audio-visual industry. This includes the ideological representation of identity and history on screen. Prior to joining academia, she was a SABC journalist who covered the local film industry for RSG radio. In this capacity, she twice won a National Media Award, “ATKV Mediaveertjie” (in 2016 and 2019). Dr. Jansen van Vuuren belongs to the Writers’ Guild of South Africa (WGSA), a national association that represents screenwriters, and she regularly serves on the jury for the South African Film and Television Awards (SAFTAS). She holds a Y-rating from the NRF.

  • Dr. Major Mabuza (University of Johannesburg) is a chemical engineer with a DEng from Tshwane University of Technology. His main research focus is carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) with a specific focus on green synthesis of metal-organic frameworks for carbon dioxide capture. His research is funded by the NRF through the Thuthuka grant. Dr. Mabuza is a 2012 Mandela Rhodes Foundation scholar. He has collaborated with multiple universities and research institutions across the country, including Mintek, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Tshwane University of Technology (TUT), University of Pretoria (UP), University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), North-West University (NWU), and University of South Africa (UNISA).

  • Dr. Anathi Magadlela (University of KwaZulu-Natal) is a plant molecular biologist with a PhD from Stellenbosch University (2016). His research focuses on the functional and evolutionary aspects of plant-soil-microbe interactions during abiotic stress. Dr. Magadlela has been awarded multiple research grants by the National Research Foundation, South Africa, and was also awarded a Fulbright African Research Scholarship by the Council for International Exchange Scholars (CIES)/U.S. Department of State from September 2018 to March 2019, at the University of West Virginia. Dr. Magadlela is a member of the South African Association of Botanists (SAAB) and the South African Council for Natural Scientific Professions (SACNASP).

  • Prof. Babalwa Magoqwana (Nelson Mandela University) is a sociologist with a PhD from Rhodes University (2015). Her main research interests lie at the interdisciplinary crossing of sociology, anthropology, African languages, gender studies, and literature, with a focus on formulating a systematised indigenous feminist theory from Africa. Prof. Magoqwana’s research has been funded by the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIHSS). She was awarded a National Research Foundation/First Rand Foundation sabbatical grant in 2017-2018, and received the Nelson Mandela University Vice-Chancellor’s Award for her Community Engagement Excellence Project in 2021. Prof. Magoqwana is currently the Interim Director for the Centre for Women and Gender Studies at Nelson Mandela University.

  • Dr. Refilwe Mapasha (University of Pretoria) is a computational physicist with a PhD from the University of Pretoria (2013). His main research interest is the improvement of the efficiency of 2D materials through defects generation for the energy production as well as the energy storage of high-performance batteries using quantum mechanical density functional theory. Dr. Mapasha is affiliated with the South African Institute of Physics (SAIP) and National Institute for Theoretical and Computational Sciences (NIThecs). He has collaborated with several South African universities as well as the Université Marien Ngouabi, Brazzaville, Congo. Dr Mapasha holds a C3 rating from the NRF.

  • Dr. Boudina McConnachie (Rhodes University) is an ethnomusicologist with a PhD from Rhodes University (2016). Her research interests lie in musical arts pedagogy, indigenous knowledge systems, African music performance and ethnomusicology. Dr. McConnachie has received grant funding from the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence at the University of Bayreuth, funded by DFG, the German Research Foundation (2021) as well as Andrew W. Mellon Grants (2017-2019). She was awarded a 2021-2022 Teaching Advancement at Universities (TAU) Fellowship and is HOD of the Department of Music and Musicology at Rhodes University.

  • Dr. Mohan Turup Pandurangan (Durban University of Technology) is a mechanical engineer with a PhD from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (2006). His research interests are in material sciences, with a focus on polymer composites. Dr. Mohan collaborates with various researchers locally and internationally in his research field and has been a principal investigator or co-investigator on 10 funding grants during the past 12 years. Dr. Mohan holds a C3 rating from the NRF.

  • Dr. Raeesa Moolla (University of the Witwatersrand) is an atmospheric scientist with a PhD from the University of the Witwatersrand (2015). Her current focus lies in hotspot monitoring and modelling of urban-scale air pollution and its impacts on human health, specifically related to VOC emissions and pollution from the transport sector. Dr. Moolla has received funding from, amongst others, the National Research Foundation (NRF), the Society of Environmental Geochemistry and Health, and the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC). She has collaborations with several international agencies and universities, including researchers based at NOAA, USA; CNRS, France; the Earth System Data Exploration unit at Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany, and local universities in South Africa. Dr. Moolla was elected to the Scientific Steering Committee of the Tropospheric Ozone Assessment Report (TOAR) and admitted as a member of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

  • Dr. Savania Nagiah (Nelson Mandela University) is a medical biochemist with a PhD from the University of KwaZulu-Natal (2017). Her research expertise is in antiretroviral drug-associated metabolic disorders. She managed the curation, implementation, and design of the basic medical science components of the MBChB curriculum at the new Nelson Mandela University Medical School in 2019/2020. She was inducted into the South African Young Academy of Science (SAYAS) in 2022 and was identified as an early career researcher by the Royal Society to attend the Commonwealth Science Conference in Singapore. This led to follow-on grants in collaboration with the University of Queensland (2017–2019). Dr. Nagiah has secured NRF emerging researcher seed funding (2022-2025) and holds a Y2 rating from the NRF.

  • Dr. Gibson Ncube (Stellenbosch University) holds a PhD in French and Francophone Literature from Stellenbosch University (2014). His research interests are in comparative literature, gender and queer studies, and African cultural studies. Owing to Dr. Ncube’s fluency in French and English, he is one of a few scholars in southern Africa whose research weaves back and forth across the sub-Saharan/North Africa divide, which has tended to bifurcate African scholarship into two distinct linguistic segments. He has been awarded fellowships by the American Council for Learned Societies, the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study, the National Humanities Center (USA), and the Leeds University Centre for African Studies. He sits on the editorial boards of the Journal of Literary Studies, the Canadian Journal of African Studies, and the Nordic Journal of African Studies. Dr. Ncube holds a C1 rating from the NRF.

  • Dr. Hloniphani Ndebele (University of the Free State) has a PhD in African languages from the University of KwaZulu-Natal (2015). His research interests are in the field of language management. His interdisciplinary research focuses on the interface between language, education, and academic literacies in higher education. Dr. Ndebele holds a Y2 rating from the NRF.

  • Dr. Ncediwe Ndube-Tsolekile (Cape Peninsula University of Technology) is a chemist with a PhD from the University of Johannesburg (2020). Dr. Ndube-Tsolekile’s research focuses on nanomaterial development for cancer theranostics, drug delivery, sensing, and lateral flow assays. Her work is supported in part by the NRF (PhD and post-PhD Thuthuka). Dr. Ndube-Tsolekile is a HOPE Fellow and a full member of the Organisation for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD). She is one of the founding academics of the CPUT Bio-Nanotech and Electrochem Research Group. Dr. Ndube-Tsolekile is a CPUT delegate on the South African Chemical Institute (SACI) committee. She has several publications to her name, as well as national and international research exchange programmes. Dr. Ndube-Tsolekile holds a Y2 rating from the NRF.

  • Dr. Ibidun Obagbuwa (Sol Plaatje University) is a computer scientist with a PhD from the University of KwaZulu-Natal (2015). Her research focus is on artificial intelligence, machine learning, data analytics, and bioinformatics, with the aim of creating data science computational technologies. Dr. Obagbuwa is an associate member of the National Institute for Theoretical and Computational Sciences (NITheCS) as well as the Centre of Excellence in Mathematical and Statistical Sciences. She has research collaborations with Punyashlok Ahilyadevi Holkar Solapur University (PAHSU), India, Olabisi Onabanjo University in Nigeria, and the University of Namibia. Dr. Obagbuwa holds a C3 rating from the NRF.

  • Dr. Mzamo Shozi (University of KwaZulu-Natal) is a chemist with a PhD from the University of KwaZulu-Natal (2015). His research interests are in the field of heterogeneous catalysis, with a specific focus on biomass valorisation and carbon dioxide hydrogenation. Dr. Shozi has secured research funding from the NRF as well as from the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK). Dr. Shozi has formed collaborations with Sasol, the University of Cape Town, Nelson Mandela University, Cardiff University (UK), the University of California, Davis (USA), and the University of Southampton (UK). He is a member of the South African Chemical Institute (SACI), the Catalysis Society of South Africa (CATSA), the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), and the American Chemical Society (ACS). He was also a recipient of a Fulbright Research Scholarship in 2018.

  • Dr. Sacha Jane West (Cape Peninsula University of Technology) is an exercise scientist with a PhD from the University of Cape Town (2006). Her scholarly interests in exercise physiology and public health, specifically the metabolic complications of HAART in HIV patients and the rehabilitation of people with disabilities, contribute to her main research focus of improving health and wellness and quality of life through exercise. She holds a C3 rating from the NRF.

  • Dr. Tawanda Zininga (Stellenbosch University) is a biochemist with a PhD from the University of Venda (2016). His research focuses on protein biochemistry, specifically the role of heat shock proteins in infectious diseases. Dr. Zininga received an African-German Network of Excellence in Science (AGNES) Junior Researcher Award in 2016. He was awarded the Claude Leon Postdoctoral Fellowship (2016–2017) and the NRF Innovation Postdoctoral Fellowship (2018–2019). He sits on the editorial board for BioMed Central (BMC) Molecular and Cell Biology. Dr. Zininga has formed collaborations with the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Ludwig Maximilians Universitat Munchen, and the University of Dundee. He holds a Y1 rating from the NRF.