universit y of kw azulu-na tal research repor t 2008/2009 - UKZN ...

Prolific reSearcherS 2008/2009Prolific reSearcherS 2008/2009Dr Emmanuel Mfanafuthi MgqwashuDr Sarojini NadarSchool of Language, Literacies, Media and Drama EducationMgqwashue@ukzn.ac.zaSchool of Religion and Theologynadars@ukzn.ac.zaDDLanguage, Literacies, Media and Drama Education. He also co-ordinatesDr Emmanuel Mfanafuthi Mgqwashu is the Acting Head of the School ofDLanguage, Literacies, Media and Drama Education. He also co-ordinatesDthe Hons, MEd and PhD programmes in the School and teaches andDsupervises postgraduate research in fields such as Applied LanguageDStudies, Teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages, AcademicDLiteracies, and English Literature. He has published his work in severallocal and international journals, and presented at conferences nationallyand abroad. He is also involved in research projects with academics fromother universities in the country and abroad. As a member of a team, DrMgqwashu and academics within and outside South Africa have jointlyput together research proposals:• He is a principal investigator in the three-year National ResearchFoundation research project that investigates strategies tocreate conditions for indigenous languages to thrive and becomeLanguages of Learning and Teaching (LoLT) in Higher Education;• He is a co-investigator in a two-year European Union funded projecton Early Childhood Development and Foundation Phase teachereducation, with specific focus on multilingual education; and• He is a co-investigator in the three-year National ResearchFoundation research project on Social Inclusion in Teaching andLearning in Higher Education.DDtime lecturer. In 2003, she obtained her PhD from the University in biblicalDr Sarojini Nadar joined the former University of Natal in 2000 as a partDtime lecturer. In 2003, she obtained her PhD from the University in biblicalDstudies and gender.DHer research has developed over the years from a limited focusDon feminist biblical hermeneutics to a wider interest in other areas ofDgender and religion, such as masculinities, gender violence and HIVand AIDS in the African context. It is this focus of her work that securedher appointment as the Director of the only postgraduate programme inGender and Religion in Africa. Her work in the field of gender and religionhas gained international recognition and she has been invited to presentpapers at conferences in over 20 different countries across the world.In 2006 Dr Nadar co-edited together with Isabel Phiri a book calledAfrican Women, Religion, and Health – Essays in Honour of Mercy AmbaOduyoye. The book won the international Catholic Press Associationaward in the category of “Gender” in New York in 2007. It also won theUKZN 2006 Annual Book Prize for Best Edited Book.Dr Nadar has published 28 peer-reviewed journal articles dealing witha range of contemporary gender concerns such as violence, ethnicity andpoverty. Her research in this area led to an invitation from the Universityof Oslo in 2007 to be a keynote speaker at “The Oslo Celebrations” whichcommemorated a decade of scientific co-operation between universitiesin South Africa and Oslo. She was chosen as one of eight internationalwomen to serve on the “Overcoming Gender Violence” committee of theWorld Council of Churches.Her further research interest in the intersection between religion,gender and HIV and AIDS resulted in herself and five other colleaguesfrom South Africa and Oslo winning a collaborative research grant from theNational Research Foundation and the Norwegian Research Council.She is Co-Editor of the SAPSE accredited journal, Journal ofConstructive Theology, Gender and Religion in Africa– the only journal inAfrica which focuses on the interface between gender and religion. Shealso sits on the board of the ISI accredited journal – Journal of FeministStudies in Religion, based at Harvard University, USA. In 2009 she waschosen as the Co-Chair of the African Biblical Hermeneutics sectionof the Society of Biblical Literature (the highest academic associationfor biblical scholars). In 2008, she was the only woman from UKZN tohave her academic and community engagement profiled in the Mail andGuardian Book of South African Women.Department of ChemistryPProfessor Dulcie Mulholland, an Honorary Professor in ChemicalPSciences at UKZN, is Head of the Division of Chemical SciencesPand Professor of Biological Chemistry at the University of Surrey atPGuildford in the United Kingdom.PProfessor Mulholland was previously Head of the Department ofPChemistry at the former University of Natal and later also at UKZNwhere she headed the Natural Products Research Group. She haspublished about 180 papers in the last 20 years and supervised thecompletion of 30 PhD degrees in the fields of natural products, andindustrial and synthetic organic chemistry. She serves on the editorialProfessor Dulcie Mulhollandboards of Planta Medica, Phytochemistry Lettersand Journal ofEthnobotany.Professor Mulholland collaborates extensively with researchersfrom around the world, isolating novel compounds from plants andassessing their pharmacological activities. She is currently involved inthe FP7 EU funded ForestSpecs project, the aim of which is to developmodern, environmentally friendly technologies, processes, materialsand products to utilise abundant sources of wood waste and humicsubstances as raw materials for value-added products.School of Chemical Engineeringramjuger@ukzn.ac.zaPProfessor Deresh Ramjugernath is the South African Research Chair inPFluorine Process Engineering and Separation Technology and DirectorPof the Thermodynamics Research Unit.Professor Ramugernath and his team of co-workers are contributingPto the South African Government’s Fluorochemical Expansion InitiativeP(FEI) by researching and developing fluorinated products, includingpharmaceuticals and agro-chemicals. Integral to the Chair is thedevelopment of human capacity to support the country’s FEI strategy.Professor Deresh RamjugernathAlthough South Africa possesses the second largest reservesof fluorspar (the starting material for all fluorochemicals), it currentlyimports almost all of its fluorinated products. There is very littlebeneficiation of the fluorspar reserves in the country and the activitiesunder the Chair would assist in addressing this problem.The research activities under the Chair are directly linked with twomajor South African companies – the South African Nuclear EnergyCorporation (NECSA) and SASOL.66 UKZN Research Report // 2008/2009UKZN Research Report // 2008/2009 67