Seven academics from UKZN were among 23 of the country’s leading scholars and scientists who were inaugurated as members of the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) and South African Young Academy of Science (SAYAS) at the academy’s (ASSAf) annual awards ceremony this week. Honorary Professor Martin Bucher, Professor Paramu Mafongoya, Professor Brij Maharaj, Professor Bice

Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Head of the College of Agriculture, Engineering and Science (CAES) Professor Albert Modi addressed an audience of young people at the Playhouse Theatre in Durban on curbing the scourge of violence on women and children. Modi gave the address during the annual Isicathamiya Competition, which showcases the uniquely KwaZulu-Natal style of cappella singing accompanied by dance.

Six UKZN computer science students doing their MSc degrees attended the prestigious Deep Learning Indaba at Kenyatta University in Nairobi, Kenya. Mr Asad Jeewa, Mr Bradley Pillay, Mr Divyan Hirasen, Ms Verosha Pillay, Ms Yuvika Singh and Ms Jane Oruh, were all funded by the Deep Learning Indaba and the UKZN node of the Centre

An international project aimed at establishing a circular economy for resilient city region food systems in South Africa, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Rwanda held one of three international start-up meetings between various stakeholders in Pietermaritzburg. The Rural-Urban Nexus: Establishing a Nutrient Loop to Improve City Region Food System Resilience (RUNRES) project is funded

‘The title of professor is not one that I take lightly – it is a title I take to train our future leaders of South Africa, Africa and the world.’ These sentiments were expressed by Professor Neil Koorbanally of UKZN’s School of Chemistry and Physics during his inaugural lecture in the Senate Chamber on the Westville campus. An Organic

South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya recently joined forces in an International Coastal Clean-Up initiative to keep Africa and its oceans clean. Clean-ups were held at all four countries simultaneously, with a one-hour time difference separating South Africa and Kenya from Ghana and Nigeria. UKZN’s PhD student in Marine Biology, lecturer and founder of the

Ms Amira Abbas, a master’s student in UKZN’s Centre for Quantum Technology, participated in IBM’s first Qiskit Camp Europe, held in Switzerland, where her team achieved first place for a project that aimed to integrate open source quantum computing python package Qiskit with PyTorch, an open source machine-learning framework. The three-day by-invitation-only event sponsored by IBM saw specialists in

Monitoring the atmosphere from space and ground-based remote sensing was the subject of the inaugural lecture presented by Professor Sivakumar Venkataraman of UKZN’s School of Chemistry and Physics. Venkataraman argued that in the current context of global change, atmospheric and climatic research should be organised in the framework of international collaborations and research networks. ‘During

Ms Shelley Barnsley, Manager of Student Support Services in the College of Agriculture, Engineering and Science was a keynote speaker at the Allan Gray Orbis Foundation Circle of Excellence (COE) Conference in Durban. Her address to high school principals and educators from about 80 schools focused on how to assist learners to make the transition from secondary school to Higher Education.

The Discipline of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering (EECE), on the Howard College campus hosted a distinguished lecture by Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) Fellow Professor Sumit Roy, Professor of Integrated Systems and Director of the Fundamentals of Networking Laboratory at the University of Washington, Seattle, USA. The lecture revolved around spectrum coexistence in the