Researchers and research areas

Wits researchers

• Katherine Bain | School of Human and Community Development | The human element - social and unconscious dynamics
• Nabeelah Bemath | Department of Psychology, School of Human and Community Development, and Bachelor of Health Sciences Office, Faculty of Health Sciences | Water and sustainable development from a psychological lens
• Precious Biyela  | School of Civil and Environmental Engineering  | Water and wastewater treatment, water quality monitoring and modelling, sustainable sanitation, and wastewater to bioenergy conversion
• Dean Brady | School of Chemistry | Biodegradation and metal accumulation
• James Braid | School of Electrical and Information Engineering | Purification of greywater
• Keith Breckenridge | Wits Institute For Social & Economic Research | Mining and post-mining
• Nechama Brodie | Wits Centre for Journalism | Media reporting on climate change and climate adaptation
• Valerie Buthelezi | School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies / African Centre for the Study of the United States | Applied agri-climatology
• Simoné Dahms-Verster | School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies | Aquatic health
• Victor de Andrade | Speech Pathology and Audiology | The human experience and dimension of water crises
• Christo Doherty | Wits School of Arts / Wits Innovation Centre | Water supply; water rights; water as medium
• David Everatt | Governance and Public Health | Informal Settlements and water/sanitation
• Sabina Favaro  | Wits Mining Institute | Co-design/participatory planning, urbanism/landscape urbanism, thick mapping, violence, socio-spatial justice and ecological integrity
• Tracy-Lynn Field | Wits School of Law | Water law, water governance, water ethics, just water transitions, sanitation law and governance
• Jennifer Fitchett | School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies | Climate-related: hydroclimates, moisture sources, rainfall seasonality
• Iginio Gagliardone | Media Studies, SLLM  | Conversations about water (water conflict, disputes among countries/communities), applications of AI to water management or to disaster management - floods (more recent interest)
• Paul Goldschagg | Wits School of Education I I teach Geography Education students about water quality which they will use in their classroom teaching. As part of the module, I provide basic water quality testing kits to 4th-year students for them to use to get hands-on experience with water quality testing.
• Jane Goudge | Wits School of Public Health | Water is integral to public health - a general interest
• Kevin Harding | School of Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering | Green Engineering and Industrial Ecology Industrial water, water treatment, water footprinting, circular economy, acid mine drainage
• Isabel Hofmeyr | WiSER | Literary and artistic representations
• Abigail Johnson | DPHRU | Water Purification
• Marie Jorritsma | WSOA, Music department ecomusicology, music and sustainability, ecoliterate music pedagogy
• Professor Jon Klaaren | water law, public procurement, water lawyers
• Serge Kubanza | School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies | Wits water and wastewater management issues
• Kgomotso Lebelo | School of Public Health, Occupational Health Division | Microbial and Chemical parameters in drinking water and health outcomes.
• Bettina Malcomess | Wits School of Arts | Dam infrastructures, apartheid infrastructure, representations of water in art, media, science; history of science, underwater cables
• Kennedy Manduna | CLM | Water-energy-environment-food nexus
• Caitlin Mapitsa | School of Governance | environmental governance and policy
• Khuliso Masindi  | School of Geosciences | Groundwater quality and quantity
• Boitshwarelo Lorato Masocha  | School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies | water availability for agriculture, water management, heavy metals remediations, sewage water management
• Tumelo Mathe | GAES  | water quality and assessment mapping, water pollution
• Zandile Mbele | School of Chemistry | technical water treatment processes
• Jennie McAdam Naude | Occupational Therapy Department, School of Therapeutic Sciences | The physical demands associated with water access in rural settings, particularly for Persons With Disabilities
• Kerrigan McCarthy  | Wits School of Pathology, Virology Department, and Wits School of Public Health |  Wastewater-based epidemiological surveillance
• Raeesa Moolla | Gaes | Pollution
• Ngaka Mosiane | Gauteng City-Region Observatory | Acid Mine Drainage and water pollution by anthropogenic activities
• Sam Motitsoe | School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences | Biological monitoring, Biodiversity and Conservation, Alien invasive species and Restoration
• Mbuso Moyo | CLM | Hydropolitics, critical minerals mining and water, water and development, climate change and water, water inequality, and water poverty.
• Mike Muller | School of Governance | whole spectrum: climate and resource to services, management, institutions & governance
• Jean-Marc Mwenge Kahinda | School of Civil and Environmental Engineering | Water resources, hydrology
• John Ndiritu | CIVIL | Modelling and optimization for managing (planning and operating) water resource systems incorporating uncertainties
• Tiyamike Ngonda | Mechanical, Industrial and Aeronautical Engineering | thermal purification of water
• David Omole  | School of Civil and Environmental Engineering | Water Quality, Water and Wastewater Treatment, Water-Health and Sanitation (WaSH)
• Beatrice Otunola | School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies | Water pollution and remediation
• Dr Joel Pearson  | Wits Institute for Social & Economic Research | Mining / municipal government
• Laura Phillips | Wiser | Mining
• Tanja Sakota | School of Arts, Film and Television | Practice-based and Artistic research, memory loss, grief, mourning
• Saumik Samanta | School of Geosciences | Environmental Geochemistry
• Tshidiso Shilabje | Wits Innovation Centre | Sustainable water management
• Mulala Simatele | GAES | Water Resource Management and Infrastructural Systems
• Cara Stacey | Music Traditional music, musical bows, vocal music | Eswatini, drought and the sea.
• Andrew Thatcher  | Human interactions with waters, polluted waters, and technology to improve water quality or water availability
• Wayne Twine | APES & Wits Rural Knowledge Hub | Bio-remediation of effluent water (Wits Rural campus case study), potential pollution of rivers in former-homeland rural areas where “nappies” are being dumped
• Ingrid Watson | Wits Mining Institute | Broadly water as it relates to mining - impacts, pollution, use, policy
• Susan (Sue) Webb | School of Geosciences (Geophysics) | Application of Geophysics to finding and managing water resources, innovations such as 4D gravity
• Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon | Wits Anthropology I work on housing and basic services in South Africa, and on ontologies of water and flooding in Brazil
• Ed Witkowski | APES | Rivers/riparian woodlands water flow, rainfall/precipitation, plant water relations, waterpoints in nature reserves/farms, etc.
• Darragh Woodford | School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences | freshwater ecology, water quality monitoring, aquatic invasions
• Myer Yaub | School of Arts | Performance, theatre and ecology
• Yuxiang Ye | School of Economics and Finance | I would like to examine the elasticity of water demand

Collaborators from other organisations

• Amber Abrams  | Future Water research institute, University of Cape Town (Civ Eng - EBE) | Public health, social sciences, science engagement
• Ameh Ameh  | University of the Western Cape, Department of Chemistry | Water reuse and treatment
• Kirsty Carden | Future Water Institute and Dept Civil Engineering, UCT | Urban water resilience, water-sensitive cities, nature-based solutions, social learning and communities of practice
• Christina Culwick Fatti | UWC | Urban water infrastructure and access; green/ecological infrastructure
• Huy Dang | Trent School of the Environment and Department of Chemistry, Trent University, Canada | Water quality, contamination
• Marleen Dekker  | African Studies Centre | water access/distribution and justice
• Gugulethu Dhlamini  School of Health Science (Medical Microbiology) | Wastewater-based Epidemiology
• Mansour Edraki | Sustainable Minerals Institute, The University of Queensland | Mine Water Management, Water Quality
• Jenny Falconer | Chemistry | private ion exchange, activated carbon, pfas
• Lena Helińska | Centre for Advanced Sustainability Studies (primary) / Faculty of Law and Administration (secondary) | The law & science conundrum, international law, policy development, popularisation and communication; transboundary watercourses, aquifers, new sources and uses of water; trade in water, ownership of water, water-related rights, water-related legal disputes.
• Peter E. Holm  University of Copenhagen (UCPH), Institute of Plant and Environmental Sciences Trace elements and heavy metals speciation and mobility, AMD, phytoremediation, soil wash
• Tamlyn Sasha Naidu | University of Copenhagen, Plant and Environmental Sciences | Resource Recovery, valorization
• Leslie Petrik | Dept Chemistry, UWC Water quality, remediation, monitoring
• Keagan Pokpas  | Department of Chemistry, University of the Western Cape | Water quality monitoring
• Marja Spierenburg | Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology, Leiden University |  governance, local climate change mitigation strategies, local knowledge, co-creation
• Samanta Stelli |  Water conservation and demand management
• Daisy Streatfeild  | Asset Manager | Water resource management
• Piotr Szwedo  | Jagiellonian University in Kraków – Centre for Advanced Sustainability Studies and the Faculty of Law and Administration | Water trade; right to water; international law of sustainable development; legal implications of water projects; legal status of water
• Noam Weisbrod  | Water Research Institute, Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, Ben Gurion University of the Negev | Vadose Zone Hydrology; Contaminant Transport in the Subsurface; Gas transport; Managed Aquifer Recharge; Fracture flow; nanoparticles