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The superpowers of women scientists at the UFS

11 February 2022 | Story Leonie Bolleurs and Nonsindiso Qwabe | Photo Supplied

The University of the Free State (UFS) has implemented several interventions to increase the diversity of its researchers, including its women scientists. Actions have paid off and resulted in an increase in the percentage of rated female researchers, from 27% in 2016 to 34% in 2021.

The university is also host to a number of science leaders in the six National Research Foundation (NRF)-funded South African Research Chairs Initiative (SARChI). Four of these research chairs are held by women. These are the research chairs in Vector-borne and Zoonotic Pathogens; Disease Resistance and Quality in Field Crops; Higher Education and Human Development; and Pathogenic Yeasts.

Health, medicine, and food sustainability are but three examples of areas in society where the women of the UFS is playing a critical role in science today.

In celebration of the International Day of Women and Girls in Science instituted by the United Nations General Assembly on 22 December 2015, the UFS is honouring its women scientists.

The science of science expos

One of the researchers at the UFS who is using science to make a difference in the lives of learners in our country, is Dr Angela Stott, Researcher and Teacher Educator in the Division of Social Responsibilities Projects (SRP) on the UFS South Campus. Together with colleagues in the SRP, she is involved in numerous Maths and Science outreach interventions to teachers and learners.

Science becomes fun for learners through the different initiatives created by Dr Stott and her colleagues. These include the online Learn Science programme (a brainchild of Dr Stott), using tablets donated by ioT.nxt, and the Creative Clubs intervention started by Dr Joleen Hamilton, a colleague of Dr Stott. In the latter, learners can take part in a MathArt competition and coding sessions.

In this year’s Creative Clubs projects, 100 Grade 9 learners from township schools will be mentored to prepare science fair projects for participation in the Expo for Young Scientists.

But why all this hard work for an expo? For these learners, the expo is more than just a public platform to showcase excellence. According to Dr Stott, learners in South African township schools tend not to be stimulated in extracurricular programmes, since teaching in these contexts is typically restricted to exam training.

However, her research has shown that higher-achieving learners from contexts of poverty respond well to such programmes and gain valuable knowledge, skills, and values from them. “This year, 100 higher-achieving Grade 9 learners from township schools will benefit from this programme, and next year another 100,” she says.

She adds that literature on this subject points to the need for structure, while also supporting learners’ development of autonomy when mentoring a learner to produce a science fair project. Dr Stott explains that the online programme around which this year’s intervention is built, has been created in a manner informed by literature on what is most likely to work. “By us researching the process, we will improve our understanding of how to maximise the benefits and mitigate the weaknesses that learners from poverty gain from such participation. This knowledge could help improve the effectiveness of such programmes throughout the country, and in other parts of the world where similar conditions apply,” she says.

Fighting for stronger immune systems

An international student from Zimbabwe, Nakai Matongera, a PhD graduate in Plant Breeding in the Department of Plant Sciences on the Bloemfontein Campus, is playing a key role in food sustainability in Africa with her research. She is a maize breeder working at the Scientific and Industrial Research and Development Centre (SIRDC) in Harare, Zimbabwe.

The focus of her PhD thesis is on the development of high-yielding and nutrient-dense maize varieties enriched with provitamin A, zinc, and essential amino acids such as lysine and tryptophan.

“With my research, I aimed to develop zinc-enhanced maize varieties that have great potential to reduce zinc deficiency in maize-based developing countries in sub-Saharan Africa,” she says.

Matongera explains that zinc-enhanced hybrids were developed by crossing introduced zinc donors and locally adapted maize inbred lines from three nutritional categories (normal, provitamin A, and quality protein maize (QPM). The hybrids were evaluated for both agronomic and nutritional performance under optimum drought and low nitrogen conditions.

“Results indicated that zinc-enhanced QPM hybrids accumulated high zinc under all growing conditions. However, the zinc-enhanced normal hybrids had the highest yield potential, implying dilution effects.”

“I find my research rewarding, because this biofortification strategy to combat micronutrient deficiency is cost-effective and has wide coverage and sustainability compared to other strategies such as clinical supplementation and food fortification,” says Matongera.

The outcomes of her research will one day, when it is implemented, change the lives of thousands of children in Africa who are suffering from zinc and iron deficiency. The shortage of zinc and iron in their diets affects their cognitive development as well as their immune systems, making them susceptible to a number of illnesses, including diarrhoea.

According to Prof Maryke Labuschagne, Nakai’s supervisor for her PhD study, this research will have a practical impact in Africa, as it will contribute towards the nutritional value of food.

Saving generations of humans and animals

When she could not pursue her childhood dream of becoming a vet, Dr Nthatisi Nyembe forged a new path in zoology, and today she is working in the Department of Zoology and Entomology on the UFS Qwaqwa Campus, where she focuses on veterinary parasitology.

Dr Nyembe’s research looks at the treatment and epidemiology of parasitic diseases in animals and humans, because – as she says – if animals are healthy, then humans are healthy. She says the ripple effect could save generations to come. “I want to be remembered for creating a drug that will make life easier for animals, because if animals are healthy, then the food we consume will also be healthy,” she says.

Dr Nyembe completed her studies on the Qwaqwa Campus from undergraduate to master’s level, specialising in Zoology. She was then awarded a scholarship to complete her PhD studies in Japan, where she spent four years looking into creating compounds that can treat and prevent unwanted parasites in animals, with a specific focus on mice.

“If I can get to a point where I can find one compound that has various benefits on multiple micro-organisms, then I will be happy”, she says.

While acknowledging the wide gender gap that still persists in her field of science, Nyembe says it should not hinder young girls who are interested in pursuing all levels of science.

“Society still looks down on girls and women, especially in Africa. If I go to a farmer as a woman and try to advise them about animal health, very few of them are receptive. However, the majority believe that I need to come with a man in order to be taken seriously. I just want to tell young aspiring female scientists that it is possible.”

“Whatever you put your mind to, you can pull through and achieve. Don’t allow yourself to be intimidated.”

News Archive

Teachers should deal with diversity in education - Prof. Francis

2010-10-08

At the occasion were, from the left: Prof. Jonathan Jansen, Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the University of the Free State (UFS); Prof. Francis; and Prof. Driekie Hay, Vice-Rector: Teaching and Learning at the UFS.
Photo: Jaco van der Merwe

Prof. Dennis Francis, the Dean of the Faculty of Education at the University of the Free State (UFS), recently delivered his inaugural lecture on Troubling Diversity in South African Education on the Main Campus in Bloemfontein.

He urged teachers to be open to what “diversity” might mean in a particular context and how diversity relates to either inclusion or exclusion.

“An approach that promotes the inclusion of all must be based on an understanding of how exclusion operates in ways that may have typical patterns of oppression, but differ in the specific ways that exclusion is expressed and becomes normalised in that context,” he said.

“The good teacher thus seeks to understand how these forms of exclusion may develop in the school’s context and respond through taking thoughtful action to challenge them. It may require creating a climate that enables the silent to speak and recognising that not all groups communicate in exactly the same ways.”

He said teachers also had to affirm the experiential base of learners and students. He said there was an assumption that students would be more effective practitioners if their own experience were validated and explored.

“It is crucial that the students’ own history is treated as valuable and is a critical part of the data that are reflected,” he said. “Equally important is that such stories and similar activities are intentionally processed to enable students to make the connections between personal experience and relevant theory.”

He also urged them to challenge the ways in which knowledge had been framed through oppression.

“Schools are often characterised by messages that draw on one or another form of oppression. Thus, expectations are subtly or in some cases unsubtly communicated, e.g. that girls are not good at physics, or that, while white learners are strong in abstract thought, African learners have untapped creativity, and so on,” he continued.

“For someone to integrate into their role as educators a commitment against oppression means confronting obstacles that one may previously have shied away from, such as challenging authority, naming privilege, emphasising the power relations that exist between social groups, listening to people one has previously ignored, and risking being seen as deviant, troublesome or unpopular.”

Furthermore, Prof. Francis said dealing with diversity in education was always affectively loaded for both students and teachers. He said in South Africa one injunction from educators was to be “sensitive” and thus avoid risking engagement with the contentious issues around imbalances of power.

“If both students and teachers are to confront issues of oppression and power in any meaningful way, we need to design more purposely for the difficulties they will encounter, for example, creating a classroom environment that promotes safety and trust so that all students are able to confront and deal with prejudice and discrimination. Classroom environments will need to balance the affective and cognitive in addressing issues of diversity and social justice,” he added.

He also said that teachers should recognise the need to complement changing attitudes with attempts to change the structural aspects of oppressions.

“To prevent superficial commitments to change, it is important for students to explore barriers that prevent them from confronting oppressive attitudes and behaviours. In this way students are able to learn and see the structural aspects of oppression,” he said.

“Equally important, however, is to get students to examine the benefits associated with challenging oppression. A fair amount of time must therefore be spent on developing strategies with students which they will be able to use practically in challenging oppression.”

He also advised educators to affirm the capacity of staff and learners to act and learn in ways that do not replicate patterns of oppression.

“Many South African schools have survived both the harsh repression of apartheid and the continuing legacy of oppression of various kinds. Despite that, we are often as educators made aware of the ways in which young people in particular affirm themselves and each other in creative and confident ways,” he concluded.

Media Release
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Director: Strategic Communication (acg)
Tel: 051 401 2584
Cell: 083 645 2454
E-mail: loaderl@ufs.ac.za
7 October 2010

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