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- An invention that uses a cell phone to measure the oxygen content in blood and thereby predict pre-eclampsia - the leading cause of maternal mortality - won Dr Mark Ansermino (MBBCh 1985, MMed 1993) and Peter von Dadelszen $250 000 in seed funding in the “Saving Lives at Birth: A Grand Challenge for Development” global competition in Washington, DC, in July 2011. These scientists from the University of British Columbia, Canada, responded to the call for “transformative ideas that have the potential to save the lives of mothers and newborns in rural settings around the time of birth”. The challenge is run by USAID, the Norwegian government, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Grand Challenges Canada and The World Bank.The team’s “phone oximeter” was one of 19 winning innovations out of some 680 entries. The phone oximeter combines pulse oximetry - the transmission of light waves through a mother’s finger to determine blood oxygen levels - with software that can be downloaded into a cell phone. The innovation puts a diagnostic tool previously only available in hospitals literally in the hands of community healthcare workers. About 150 000 mothers and 10 times more babies die annually in the developing world in the three days surrounding childbirth.
- The Royal Society of Canada (RSC) inducted Wits benefactor Dr Ian Jordaan (BSc Eng Civil 1960, MSc Eng 1965) as a Fellow of its Academy of Science at a ceremony in Ottawa in November 2011. The fellowship recognises Jordaan’s distinguished engineering, research and learning contributions to designing offshore structures in harsh environments. Jordaan, who pioneered the risk-based approach to offshore engineering and estimation of structural loads caused by ice, will enter the RSC’s Division of Applied Science and Engineering. The RSC is a national body of distinguished Canadian scholars, which promotes learning and research. Peers select the Fellows.
- The Texas Academy of Family Physicians (TAFP) honoured Dr Jonathan MacClements (MBBCh 1989) with the 2011 TAFP Exemplary Teaching Award at the Academy’s annual assembly in Dallas on 30 July 2011. The award recognises individuals with outstanding teaching skills and those who have developed and implemented innovative teaching models. MacClements teaches family medicine in the University of Texas Health Science Centre.
- Texan law firm Bell Nunnally & Martin LLP appointed Karen-Lee Pollak (BA 1990, LLB 1993) as a partner and head of the firm’s immigration practice from 31 October 2011. Pollak provides business immigration advice to clients that is informed by her own experience as an immigrant, her knowledge of the challenges of global migration and its necessity in the 21st century workplace. Pollak is a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, the Dallas Bar Association, the Texas Women Lawyers Association, and both the Texas and California bar associations. Texas Monthly magazine selected her as its “Rising Star” in 2009.
- The former legal head of the 2010 World Cup local organising committee and then Chief Executive of the South African Football Association (SAFA), Leslie Sedibe (BA 1994, LLB 1996, LLM 2005) took the reins as Chief Executive of Proudly South Africa on 1 September 2011. He replaced acting CEO Herbert Mkhize. An attorney specialising in entertainment law, Sedibe joined EMI after serving articles and administered the careers of stars including Brenda Fassie.
- The Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) awarded its Science-for-Society Gold Medal to Ad Hominem Professor in the Wits Obstetrics and Gynaecology Department, Helen Rees, on 13 October 2011. The award recognises outstanding scientific thinking in the service of society. Rees established the Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Institute, of which she is executive director, in 1994. Recognised internationally for sustained research and innovation in the field of women’s reproductive health and HIV, tuberculosis and sexually transmitted infections specifically, she chairs the World Health Organisation’s strategic group of experts on immunisation and is on the board of the international AIDS Vaccine Initiative. She chairs the Follow-on African Consortium for Tenofovir Studies (FACTS), established to conduct clinical studies to determine whether tenofovir gel is safe and effective in protecting women from HIV and herpes simplex virus.
- The Forum of University Nursing Deans of South Africa (FUNDISA) inducted Professor Laetitia Rispel (MSc Med 1991, PhD Med 1998), an Adjunct Professor in the Centre for Health Policy, into the Hall of Fame for Nurse Researchers in South Africa, in August 2011. FUNDISA, which provides a platform to pursue excellence in nursing scholarship in higher education, recognised Rispel for her research into health policy and health systems. The principal investigator in the Research on the State of Nursing (RESON) research programme at the Wits Centre for Health Policy, Rispel has focused on nursing policy, “casualisation” (flexitime), agency nursing and moonlighting, nursing management and quality of care. She pioneered health policy research before democratisation and is a recognised throughout Southern Africa as a health policy and systems expert. She is President of the Public Health Association of South Africa.
- Professor at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Dr Bonny Norton (BA, PDE 1978, BA Hons 1983) won the 2010 Second Language Leadership through Research Award (senior category) for sustained contributions to the field of second language research. Norton’s research evolved from groundbreaking work on identity, investment and language learning in 1995 and her recent book series, Critical Language and Literacy Studies (Multilingual Matters, 2010). Nominating scholars wrote that Norton’s publications, of which there are over 100, had “changed the face of second language research” and had developed “a new paradigm of language learning research around conceptions of imagined identities”. Norton is also a visiting professor in the Wits School of Education.
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