Andrew Forbes is a Distinguished Professor in the School of Physics.
The new Structured Light Laboratory, established by Professor Andrew Forbes and his team, is currently researching how to pack information into light, transmit it over distance, and then unpack the information on the other side.
“We do this in both optical fibres and free space, and at the classical and quantum levels,” explains Prof Forbes, who took up his Distinguished Professorship in the Wits School of Physics in March 2015.
“The aim is to increase traditional bandwidth by at least two orders of magnitude (100x) and to improve security between remote sites.”
Forbes and his team will create specific light patterns. Each pattern will, for instance, denote a specific letter in the alphabet.
When you consider that the diameter of an optical fibre is one-tenth of a human hair, it is not hard to imagine that these goals require input from some of the best minds in physics.
The outcomes of the reasearch would be of interest to the telecoms industry, banks and the military. Light patterning can also be used to image complex structures such as nanostructures for drug delivery.
Forbes has a PhD from the former University of Natal, through the Atomic Energy Corporation, where he worked on South Africa’s biggest laser project at the time: uranium enrichment.
After obtaining his PhD in 1998, he became a partner in a private sector export laser company called SDI (Scientific Development & Integration).
When the company was sold to an American enterprise in 2005, he joined the CSIR’s National Laser Centre (NLC), where he established a new research area in structured light.
“We published a lot of papers and received a lot of attention for the work,” says Forbes.
He is aiming for immense scientific impact with his team at Wits, which currently includes two postdoctoral fellows, two PhD, one masters and five honours students. He also has a reciprocal student exchange relationship with several universities worldwide.
“My aim is to develop great ideas at the highest level,” he says. “I would also like to patent and license our work for start up companies. This is what Africa needs - to start with good people and excellence in science and then to make an economic impact by leveraging on this.”
Addressing the world’s major problems
- Wits University
Bob Scholes is a Distinguished Professor at the Wits Global Change and Sustainability Research Institute (GCSRI).
The world is at an “incredible juncture” in human history. By 2050, the global population will climax at around 10 billion people, and if our current consumption trends continue, this will not be ecologically sustainable.
This is a message that Professor Bob Scholes, Distinguished Professor at the Wits Global Change and Sustainability Research Institute (GCSRI) in the School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences believes should be spread far and wide.
“Each one of us has to start limiting our consumption of ecological resources like water, and our emissions to the environment such as carbon dioxide. We can do so without compromising our ability to live well, and by doing so will allow others – in the present and the future – to also have a good life.”
Scholes, who took up the role as Distinguished Professor in January 2015, is a world-renowned scientist in Systems Ecology (particularly on the African Savannas). He has worked on global climate change since 1990.
“My work is in the field of Systems Ecology or ‘big picture ecology’, and my objective is to help address major national and international problems, notably global climate change, global biodiversity loss and land degradation,” says Scholes.
“I’m particularly interested in a field known as Ecosystem Dynamics, which is all about how the ecosystem behaves over time, especially in the presence of disturbances. Are there tipping points or thresholds that we should not cross? Where do they lie? What is on the other side?”
Scholes is one of the lead authors in the assessment reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on present and future impacts of climate change, and how we can adapt to or reduce it.
He also co-led a working group of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA), is co-chairing the upcoming global assessment of Land Degradation Assessment, and is co-leader of South Africa’s Strategic Environmental Assessment of Shale Gas Development.
Scholes is confident that nationally and internationally we have the technical solutions to overcome the major ecological problems we face, “but whether we can achieve this politically and socially remains an open question?” he asks.
He sees his new role as developing a new generation of scientists.
“Central to my work is to advance this pipeline at Wits through the growth of a research group of masters and doctoral students and postdoctoral fellows,” he says.
Manhunt for an elusive mutant gene
- Wits University
Chris Mathew is a Distinguished Professor in the Sydney Brenner Institute for Molecular Bioscience.
Distinguished Professor Chris Mathew is on a mission to find the specific gene that causes cancer of the oesophagus, which is common among black African populations in southern and East Africa.
While many epidemiological studies have been done to establish the cause of this cancer – which include tobacco-smoking, alcohol use, smoke inhalation from home cooking fires, poor nutrition and fungal-contaminated maize – no single major cause has yet been identified.
Cancer of the oesophagus has a poor prognosis.
“A major problem is that by the time patients come to the clinics, the cancer is often advanced and the tumour partially blocks the oesophagus, making it difficult to swallow. Patients are extremely thin, and at this stage the cancer is very difficult to cure,” says Mathew.
Mathew is from the Department of Medical and Molecular Genetics at King’s College, London, where he will continue his work, sharing his time between there and Wits. He has been researching new approaches to accessing the Sub-Saharan oesophageal cancer genome for several years.
Joining Wits as a Distinguished Professor in the Sydney Brenner Institute for Molecular Bioscience in February 2015, Mathew will be building a research group of postdoctoral fellows and postgraduate students to develop an internationally competitive research programme on the genetics of African cancers.
“Because I am South African, I was always aware of this cancer,” says Mathew.
“We think there are genetic factors in these populations that make them more susceptible to oesophageal cancer, and that the combination of genes and particular environmental exposures triggers its development.”
Working with colleagues at Wits and the National Health Laboratory Sciences, his research group will go on a nationwide hunt, aiming to scan the entire genomes of 2000 cancer patients to look for genes that increase the risk of this cancer.
“We will look for inherited genetic variants in patients that increase cancer susceptibility, and we will sequence the DNA of the tumours from the patients to look for mutations in the tumour cells which contribute to cancer development,” says Mathew.
“We are building partnerships with the International Cancer Genome Consortium who will help us to understand the molecular pathways that are driving this cancer and train a new generation of African scientists in cancer genomics,” he explains.
Making the right climate decisions
- Wits University
Coleen Vogel is a Distinguished Professor at the Global Change and Sustainability Research Institute (GCSRI).
Understanding how citizens (including governments) make decisions at a time when we are facing the severe implications and effects of climate change is the domain of climate scientist, Distinguished Professor Coleen Vogel.
In January 2015 Vogel returned to Wits, where she was an academic for over 30 years, to take up her Distinguished Professorship in the Global Change and Sustainability Research Institute (GCSRI) and the School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences (APES).
“I am interested in the human side of climate change – how we can adapt and make ourselves more resilient in the face of climate change,” says Vogel.
“Globally and locally we are confronted by environmental thresholds. We need to be aware that our water and food security systems are at risk and that this has vast implications for the wellbeing of people and the planet.”
A world leader in climate science, Vogel is one of the key authors of a series of global assessments for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
She has chaired a range of international committees and serves on a number of international boards, including the African science committee of Future Earth.
“I have been fortunate that my research and position have enabled me to assist and collaborate with various actors, including governments and organisations worldwide, to grapple with making the decisions required for a sustainable future.
“This has also enabled me to do trans-disciplinary research at an international level, not only between the physical and social sciences, but also to better understand how we can engage the wider public, society and business to make decisions around climate change.”
As a Distinguished Professor, Vogel will be focusing on Africa, including creating a cohort of young academics who can best work on climate change themes.
Vogel has developed a considerable number of PhD students who are now sitting in positions of authority in government and a wide range of sectors in South Africa and internationally.
“I hope that I have enabled them to be critical in their positions and to make critical decisions,” she says. “In my current position I want to continue developing the next generation of scholars, particularly women, to take their place in the climate change field,” she says.
The first 1 000 days
- Wits University
Linda Richter is a Distinguished Professor and Director of the Wits Centre of Excellence in Human Development.
From the second that a baby is born, its life is determined by its mother’s emotions, and the way in which its mother reacts to it.
“Babies look for the human face, because their brains are primed to receive certain kinds of input from human beings,” says Distinguished Professor Linda Richter.
“When a mother leads a poverty-stricken life it can detract from her ability to feel relaxed or be emotionally available to her baby, including depression. This detrimentally affects the future development of her baby.”
Richter, who has a PhD in Psychology, joined Wits as a Distinguished Professor in May 2014. With her main research interests being in life course human development issues – from infancy to young adulthood, parenting and middle-age – Richter’s work in Early Childhood Development (ECD) has been so influential, that the national programme on ECD that she and her team developed has been gazetted for public comment in March 2015.
“This is a huge step forward because, as research demonstrates, the quality of nutrition and loving support that a baby gets in the first 1000 days of life has a profound impact on a child’s future development and ability to maximise his or her potential throughout life,” says Richter.
Richter, the director of the Wits Centre of Excellence in Human Development, has been working closely alongside Wits Professor Shane Norris, director of the MRC/Wits Developmental Pathways for Health Research Unit. The Unit has been running one of the world’s most significant multigenerational studies on human development in a middle-income country.
Named the Birth to Twenty-Plus Programme, their team has been following mothers, their children and their children’s children to collect data on early childhood development in low- and middle-income countries since 1990.
Of the 3273 babies enrolled in the programme at the outset of the study, they have maintained contact with 2 300 for 18 years, through yearly or twice yearly data collection waves.
“It is completely multidisciplinary, covering biological, social, psychological, and economic issues that affect health and development over the life course.”
This work has had a significant impact on the field of early childhood development and early determinants of health and human capital.
“We have numerous collaborations, national and international, and we are putting considerable energy into postgraduate development and into helping students and fellows publish in peer-reviewed journals as we would like them to make research and academia their career,” says Richter.
Reinventing building blocks of maths education
- Wits University
Mike Askew is a Distinguished Professor in the Mathematics Education Division of the Wits School of Education.
It is no secret that South Africa’s maths education needs a complete overhaul and Distinguished Professor Mike Askew is just the right man for the job.
Askew, former Professor of mathematics education at King’s College in London, has been involved in over 20 maths education research projects in the field. In July he took up his appointment as a Distinguished Professor in the Mathematics Education Division of the Wits School of Education, focusing on the foundation and intermediate school level.
“We are busy developing a more ‘home-grown’ set of materials for maths teachers in South Africa to work with,” says Askew. “Now that I am here fulltime I want to work intensively with the schools.”
The Mathematics Education Division is actively involved in mathematics education research and has a strong postgraduate programme, which attracts both local and international students.
The Division has two Chairs in primary and secondary mathematics education, respectively led by Professors Hamsa Venkatakrishnan and Jill Adler. Askew has participated in their Wits Maths Connect Project from the outset.
“One of the projects we are working on is a tools and education programme in 10 historically disadvantaged primary schools in Gauteng,” he explains.
Within this programme they draw on mathematics education research, psychology research and learning theories to come up with a multidisciplinary approach that offers learners the best opportunity of learning mathematics, and teachers the best tools and understanding with which to teach maths.
“The big challenge is to move away from the dominant view of mathematics teaching and learning where lots of isolated, apparently random facts are repeated and which learners are expected to memorise,” says Askew.
“We believe in an approach where mathematics is taught as a connected system of ideas from foundation phase level, which can then be developed through the intermediate and secondary school grades.”
To achieve this, young children participate in an engaging range of mathematical activities and games. Through active engagement, children from disadvantaged backgrounds receive an equal opportunity start in maths education from the foundation age.
“Our overall aim is to strengthen the mathematical pipeline from the foundation level. We want all students to acquire a sound understanding of mathematics and we want far more learners exiting grade 12 who are well equipped to pursue tertiary mathematics.”
Race and whiteness in a post-apartheid SA
- Wits University
Samantha Vice is a Distinguished Professor who works with the Wits Philosophy Department and the Wits Centre for Ethics.
Is there still a role for white academics in South Africa?
This is one of the complex questions Distinguished Professor Samantha Vice, former head of Rhodes University’s Philosophy department asks herself on a daily basis – both in her personal and academic capacities.
Vice joined Wits as a Distinguished Professor in January 2015, where she will be teaching Philosophy III and postgraduate students, and researching a wide range of areas, including the existential experience of race and ‘whiteness’ in a post-apartheid society.
“Many white South Africans, including myself, are committed to contributing to South Africa. This is our home and at the same time we experience the tension of feeling we benefited from a long history of injustice and we wonder whether there is a place and role here for us now,” she says.
“The whole question makes me feel deeply uncomfortable and I have been trying to work through this, in both a personal and academic context, for many years.”
Her hope is that South Africa will become less segregated in a natural way over time, but as an academic, she questions whether there is still a role for white professors at South African universities.
“As a philosopher, you want to feel that you are dealing with the universals of human experience, and that you are thinking about the shared and most valued fundamentals of human existence. But this view comes under scrutiny for someone like me in the current South African curriculum debate because I am trained in Analytic Philosophy.”
One of the questions she is grappling with is whether South Africa’s philosophy is based on white, Western values.
“I would hope not. I would hope that it is regarded as a hugely valuable tradition with wonderful thinkers and amazing theories that should be part of a mix of philosophical traditions,” she says.
“At the same time there is no question that Philosophy Departments should be teaching African Philosophy and Non-Western Philosophy. The question is to what degree, if any, that European and Continental traditions are retained in the mix.”
Vice works with the Wits Philosophy Department and the Wits Centre for Ethics to continuously develop deep question research.
“We are developing both the academic and non-academic contexts by attracting postgraduates and by bringing citizens onto campus for exciting debates about what it means to be human,” she says.
Sitting on an economic time bomb
- Wits University
Vishnu Padayachee is a Distinguished Professor in the School of Economics and Business Sciences.
Time is ticking for South Africa to find clear, non-racial, all-inclusive development strategies and complementary macroeconomic programmes, says Distinguished Professor Vishnu Padayachee.
“We are already seeing the growth of political movements with dangerous tendencies. They are a natural attractant for people with no hope. We need to change this,” says Padayachee, who has joined Wits as a Distinguished Professor in the Wits School of Economics and Business Sciences in November 2014.
“We need clear development strategies and complementary macroeconomic programmes that inspire all people to be recommitted to a non-racial, non-sexist, egalitarian and democratic South Africa. Otherwise we are sitting on an economic time bomb.”
Padayachee has been studying macroeconomics for the past 20 years. He and his students are currently studying the monetary and economic policy in South Africa, from the early 20th century to now.
“We look at why, in 1994 the ANC government chose a particular macroeconomic framework, and what role big business, the unions and the international community played in this choice,” he explains.
As a researcher and advisor in ANC economic policy at the time, Padayachee had an insider view.
“Decisions made at the time have not been effective in the macroeconomic picture,” he explains.
“The strategy relied on private sector investment to stimulate the economy and the State pretty much withdrew from economic life at the outset, which has cost the country dearly. Many of the large, private companies left South Africa post 1994 and re-established overseas.”
Padayachee believes a social democratic alternative of a public-led approach, where the State plays a pivotal role as an investment agency alongside an active civil society, would have been preferable.
Even though he is trained in Keynesian macroeconomics, Padayachee’s research and graduate teaching falls within the confluence and traditions of political economy, economic history and development studies.
As a Distinguished Professor concerned about academics being lured to the corporate world and his aim is to inspire young economists with postgraduate degrees to pursue an academic career.
“It’s a big worry for universities in South Africa and globally that young economists with postgraduate degrees are seduced, often by large salaries, into commerce and government. We have an obligation to counter this by getting young people excited about academia as a highly fulfilling career,” he says.
The joys and terrors of writing
- Wits University
Ivan Vladislavić is a Distinguished Professor in the Creative Writing Department.
‘Listen here,’ he said. ‘The fugu fish is twenty-seven times more deadly than the green mamba. Incredible.’ … Bate was sitting on the bed reading a copy of the Reader’s Digest, which he’d carried away from his dentist’s waiting room the day before …
This is an excerpt from the opening of The Fugu-Eaters, one of the stories in Professor Ivan Vladislavić’s 2015 collection titled 101 Detectives.
A celebrated South African author, he is also a Johannesburg writer through and through. He has called this city home ever since he moved here from Pretoria to study at Wits in the 1970s.
Vladislavić worked as a freelance editor and writer for nearly 30 years before taking up his Distinguished Professorship in the Creative Writing Department at Wits in February 2015.
In this position he is able to devote time to his writing, while he supervises creative writing Master’s students. During their two-year course, the students, many of them first-time writers, produce full-length works of fiction or non-fiction.
Vladislavić’s first short story collection Missing Persons was published in 1989. Since then he has published seven books of fiction and four books of non-fiction, and has compiled and edited four multi-author volumes. He has also been widely translated and published internationally.
He brings a rich diversity of knowledge and experience to Wits. “It is very satisfying for me to come back to this institution 40 years after I first enrolled here as a student,” he says.
“My position here allows me to work in a more concentrated way and I am also thoroughly enjoying my participation in the masters workshop. Writing your first piece of fiction can be daunting and the workshops offer a supportive system that speeds up the learning process as students are supervised by practised writers, editors and readers who can guide them in a focused way.”
Regarding his own writing, Vladislavić says: “I will only know what my next book is when I get there. One of the joys – and terrors – of writing fiction is that you discover what you are doing as you go along.”
