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UFS students honoured at 2024 Women in Science Awards

23 August 2024 | Story André Damons | Photo Supplied

Thandokuhle Gama, Dr Glen Tylor and Anele Mthembu — Winners: Thandokuhle Gama (left) and Anele Mthembu (right), who were honoured with the DSI-Esther Mahlangu Master's Fellowship at the 2024 SAWiSA, with Dr Glen Taylor, Senior Director: Directorate Research Development (DRD), UFS.

Two postgraduate students from the University of the Free State (UFS) were honoured at this year’s Women in Science Awards (SAWiSA) hosted by the Department of Science and Innovation (DSI).

Thandokuhle Gama, a Master of Medical Science student with specialisation in Pharmacology, and Anele Mthembu, who is working on her master’s degree in Disaster Management in the Disaster Management Training and Education Centre for Africa (DIMTEC), are both recipients of the DSI-Esther Mahlangu Master's Fellowships.

This fellowship is awarded to women scientists and researchers who are pursuing their master’s or doctoral studies and already hold scholarships from the National Research Foundation or other DSI agencies. The fellowships for Gama and Mthembu are worth R75 000 each and can be used towards their tuition fees or to enhance academic programmes by covering the costs of attending conferences or specialised research materials and equipment required to complete their degrees.

Honouring Dr Esther Mahlangu

The prestigious 2024 SAWiSA, which honour the exceptional contributions of women to science, technology, engineering, mathematics and innovation (STEMI) in South Africa, took place on 15 August 2024 in Mbombela. The theme was “Transition towards an Innovation Economy: The Role of Women Leaders in STEM”.

This year, the awards honoured world-renowned artist, Dr Esther Mahlangu, by renaming this year's master's and doctoral fellowships the DSI-Esther Mahlangu Fellowships.

“I feel honoured and grateful for the recognition, although it's been difficult to process what it actually means. It has been an overwhelming experience. It came as a surprise, because when I applied, I was not sure what to expect because these are national awards with many other applicants,” says Gama.

She was nominated by Innocensia Mangoato, lecturer in the UFS Department of Pharmacology and a previous winner at the awards. Gama is doing research on medicinal plants that are used in traditional medicine to treat diabetes.

“Winning this award means that my work thus far is being recognised. It is all through God’s grace. I'm also grateful to everyone who has contributed towards my journey: my family, teachers, mentors and sponsors, and everyone else. It will allow me to continue to advance research in the field of diabetes treatment using traditional medicines or medicinal plants.”

Bettering lives

Mthembu, who was nominated by her mentor, Dr Tlou Daisy Raphela-Masuku, a lecturer at DIMTEC, says it is a fantastic feeling winning this award. “Before the awards, Dr Raphela-Masuku and I dreamt I could win the SAWiSA. But before then, I was surprised and grateful for being acknowledged by DSI as a finalist; I focused on being a DSI finalist, and that winning would be a bonus,” she says.

She continues: “It means a lot to me to win the DSI Master’s Fellowship, as it is a testimony of God’s grace in my life. It is the destiny for helpers God has placed in my life, including my mentor, supervisor, and the DIMTEC postgraduate school. We all won!”

Mthembu is working her master’s thesis on the integration of risk-informed development (RID) and nature-based solutions (NbS) into sustainable human settlements in eThekwini Municipality, KwaZulu-Natal.

“The overarching aim is to evaluate the integration of both these concepts into human settlements’ strategic planning to offer eThekwini Municipality innovative and ecosystem-based approaches to achieving sustainable and resilient human settlements and achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11 on building resilient cities.

“I hope to publish my findings and contextualise the enabling environments for RID (EE4RID) Framework in eThekwini Municipality so they can make risk-informed decisions on development and human settlements to achieve SDG 11,” explains Mthembu.

Gama says the aim with her research is to determine if these medicinal plants can treat diabetes by stimulating stem cells to differentiate and become insulin-producing cells. She hopes that through this research diabetes treatment can advance from a level where it is being continuously managed, to a level where we can cure the disease.

News Archive

Afromontane Research Unit makes climate change inroads

2017-10-28

Description: Prof Mukwada Tags: Prof Mukwada

Prof Geofrey Mukwada

The Afromontane Research Unit (ARU) has recently made inroads in climate-change research. This has been achieved through work published by Professor Geofrey Mukwada and Professor Desmond Manatsa, whose research could make it possible to predict El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) several months before its occurrence.

Professor Manatsa is an ARU postdoctoral fellow currently collaborating with Professor Mukwada on an ongoing climate-change research project. The two experts noted that ENSO is one of the most important climate phenomena on earth, due to its ability to change the global atmospheric circulation, which in turn, influences temperature and precipitation across the world.

Climate change scientific breakthrough
“This is a tremendous breakthrough, because humanity as a whole has been looking for answers regarding the origins of climate-related hazards which are worsening, yet becoming more frequent and difficult to predict. In some cases, floods and droughts occur in the same season, and within the same geographical area. These extreme climate events are becoming more frequent, often leading to loss of life and threatening national economies and livelihoods,” said Professor Mukwada, coordinator of the ARU sub-theme on Living and Doing Business In Afromontane Environments.

During an interview with the Southern Times, Professor Manatsa revealed that the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is initiated and sustained in the tropical Pacific, a fact that has eluded climate scientists for years. “It was an unresolved puzzle which limited the successful prediction of ENSO events with reasonable lead time. Climate scientists were only able to know with some degree of certainty that the event would occur once it had started, just a few months before its impacts were felt,” Professor Manatsa said.

Prof Manatsa is upbeat that a lot of headway has now been made towards unravelling the mystery of ENSO’s origin. “The necessity of the inclusion of the solar energy changes due to ozone alterations in the upper atmosphere should significantly impact on the realistic version of ENSO in climate models. This in turn should not only provide more accurate ENSO forecasts for the region, but a longer lead time for users to prepare for the event,” he said.

ENSO is a climate phenomenon based in the tropical Pacific Ocean. Its events bring good rains and even floods over most parts of the world in some years and droughts in others, depending on whether the phenomenon is in a warm or cold phase. The warm phase is referred to as El Nino, when the waters over the tropical east Pacific are heated up, but when cooled, it is termed La Nina. La Nina was responsible for the favourable rains over much of Southern Africa, including Zimbabwe, during the 2016/17 rainfall season. The El Nino occurrence a year before had devastating drought effects that was characterised by scorching heat and widespread water shortages. This work was published in a high-profile journal, Nature Scientific Reports.

ARU is a flagship inter- and trans-disciplinary research programme focusing on the under-researched area of montane communities. It was launched in June 2015 and is based on the Qwaqwa Campus.

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