2024 Inaugural Lectures
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PROFESSOR JENNIFER WATERMEYER School of Human and Community Development, Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology, Faculty of Humanities Lecture title: "Putting care back into healthcare: The central role of communication" Date: 29 August 2024 Communication at the heart of healthcare, directly influencing patient outcomes and healthcare systems. Despite its crucial role in ensuring quality care, it is often overlooked. In this lecture, I have drawn on twenty years of research in diverse South African healthcare settings to highlight the central role communications plays in healthcare and the importance of analysing communication practices and listening to the voices of patients and healthcare providers. |
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PROFESSOR GLYNIS GOODMAN-CRON School of Animal, Plant & Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Science Lecture title: "Of Daisies and Mountains - A plant systematist’s journey exploring the biodiversity of southern Africa" Date: 06 August 2024 Systematics is the foundation for understanding and documenting the diversity of life on Earth. In this lecture, I recounted elements of my journey as a plant systematist – exploring evolutionary relationships and describing new species and genera (mainly in the daisy family, the Asteraceae), and using endemic and near-endemic genera of the Drakensberg to investigate drivers of speciation in this hotspot of biodiversity, and the large genus Helichrysum (everlasting daisies) to explore its role as a ‘melting pot’ in the floral diversification of southern Africa. |
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PROFESSOR DANIELA CASALE School of Economics and Finance, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management Lecture title: "Inequality in South Africa: Reflections of a feminist economist" Date: 5 August 2024 Professor Casale's lecture covered three main areas. She reflected on her personal journey over the last thirty years in the field of economics and specifically the sub-discipline of feminist economics; she described what the study of feminist economics involves and how it offers important insights to the broader discipline; and lastly, she used examples from her research on inequality in South Africa in the post-apartheid period to illustrate how the principles of feminist economics can be employed in practice. |
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PROFESSOR ABDULLAH LAHER Division of Emergency Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences. Lecture title: "HIV in the emergency department" Date: 23 July 2024 Globally, there are over 39 million people living with HIV, with approximately 600 000 HIV related deaths annually. Despite free access to antiretroviral therapy (ART) in SA’s public health system, approximately a third of eligible persons are not yet on ART, and of those on ART, another third are not virally suppressed. |
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