Trinitonian 19

ALUMNI FEATURE
An exciting and magnificent journey into the future
awaits matriculants. We caught up with dynamic alumni
students Kerry, Mbali and Taryn to hear what they have
been up to since hanging up their school blazers.
KERRY CAWSE-NICHOLSON
TRINITYHOUSE RANDPARK RIDGE | CLASS OF 2003
A Lady that STEAMs Ahead…
When it comes to
#careergoals, you
don’t get much
better than old
Trinitionian, Dr. Kerry Cawse-
Nicholson. Not only has she
achieved (quite literally) out-ofthis-world
feats in mathematics
and science, but she’s done so in
an industry typically dominated
by men. A modern-day
inspiration that STEAMs ahead!
Did you always know that you
were going to work for NASA?
Haha – starting with the
easy questions, are you?!
When I decided against my
original degree choice of
aeronautical engineering and/
or astrophysics, I thought that
a space-related career was no
longer on the cards for me. But,
among the many applications
of mathematics is image
processing – in other words,
turning an image (in my case,
taken from satellites in space)
into information that someone
can use. My vision might have
been a bit blurry at the time,
but my path was laid out for me.
NASA it was going to be!
maths, from modelling diseases
to studying the behaviour of
fluids to predicting the stock
market, and many more. I did
my PhD in understanding the
information we can glean from
satellite images acquired at
many different wavelengths –
beyond those the eyes can see.
How did you end up at NASA?
On a winding road, LOL! While
completing my PhD I worked
at the Center for Scientific and
Industrial Research (CSIR) in
Pretoria, one of South Africa’s
top research institutions. After
finishing my PhD, I did a 2-year
post-doc at a university in New
York, which is similar to an
apprenticeship for an academic
career. My daughter was born in
the US, but my husband, Terence
Nicholson, and I decided to
move back to South Africa to
Kerry Cawse-Nicholson
be with family. I worked at a few
different companies, processing
all kinds of imagery. One of
my memorable projects was
using satellite imagery to help
a mining company return the
vegetation around their site to
its natural state after the mine
was shut down. Having worked
in so many different area and
with different types of imagery,
serendipitously it gave me the
specialised skills that NASA was
looking for at the time, and so I
packed my bags.
One can see you have a lot of
passion for the industry!
Oh yes! I love the constant
challenge – there is always a
new problem to consider, and
I’m never bored! I’m also inspired
to be working with some of the
What did you study?
In the end, I enrolled for a
general BSc at Wits because it
gave me the flexibility to choose
either option later. However, I
fell in love with a course that
was then called Computational
and Applied Mathematics. We
studied all the real-life uses of
Kerry with her family at Pinnacles
20 | The Trinitonian