Women Scientists From South Africa

"Without trying to be rude, they are very ignorant about the subject. Genetic modification of plants is probably the safest kind of GM, yet it is the most vilified one."

"No, definitely not. It can be a solution for only a small amount of crops that are going to help with food security. People are thinking about aeroponics, hydroponics, eating insects, eating all sorts of other foods. Resurrection crops is one solution of many – but I think it is a very important one."

"It is also the continent where there is the greatest predicted food shortage compared to the population growth. The United Nations has projected the African population to double to 2.4 billion by 2050, while global warming is likely to worsen droughts and reduce crop yields. But apart from all of that, it is my passion to do this for Africa."

"My advice is simple: start small, but think big. We can’t tackle sustainability challenges overnight, but every action matters."

"In terms of what I want to do, Africa, Africa, Africa. We are a continent that’s reliant on rain for our crops: we are already a poor continent so we cannot put in a lot of irrigation."

"I also assist on the business process and program development of our prototyping facility which develops photonics prototypes well-aligned to market needs."

"My responsibilities involve implementing structured light to increase the bandwidth of optical communications systems. I design and construct optical experiments as well as develop code to automate measurement processes and analyze data."

"Apart from enjoying and having an aptitude for math and science at school, I decided to pursue a career in physics because there are very few female scientists in South Africa. Having a degree in physics opens the door to a variety of careers across a variety of sectors. And since only a few women pursue these careers it means more opportunities for those who do."

"That may be talent development, industry research, or even developing innovative curriculum to meet emerging workforce needs"

"The Role of Gender-Responsive Organizations in Global Science," explaining the concept and expanding on it. Being gender-responsive, she said, means creating an environment that promotes an inclusive approach, recognizing the needs of both women and men."

"I’m constantly looking for new ways to reach people"

"So we’ve had a youth centre down in Masiphumelele for years. But we realised that we were missing young men aged between 17 and 29. So we have built a health park alongside the youth centre, basically it’s a gym with all the latest equipment."

"So the message now is: ‘get ripped, get prepped.’ You know, if you want to look gorgeous, if you wanna be attractive, build your muscles, but have a healthy penis too."

"And in the middle of the health park, we still have the sexual reproductive health clinic"

"Plus a mental health support component. We are seeing a ton of mental health difficulties post-COVID. So just some basic support. Somebody who can sit next to you and say: ‘I see you, I feel your pain. If you are using substances, can you use less? If you’re smoking, can you smoke less?’ We’re trying to address the non-communicable diseases as well."

"There is an epidemic of obesity now. So we are trying to say to young women: ‘this BMI [Body Mass Index] is going to get you into trouble. What can we do, sister? How can we help you? What’s your diet? Can we advise around the dietary side?’ You know, gentle engagement around non-communicable diseases"

"To be honest, I’m 62, so I kind of feel like my career is – with the lens that the glass is half full – that I am at a career summit somehow. I suppose I’ve been quite reflective in thinking what has been achieved and what still needs to be done."

"I’ve got a lot of thoughts now about ensuring that the Desmond Tutu Health Foundation and the Desmond Tutu HIV Centre are in stable and sustainable spaces. But you’re right, it’s such an exciting time in prevention, particularly antiretroviral-based prevention. I’ve also been looking back on 40 years of the epidemic: What have we done?"

"I’m a paleontologist, and a biologist. The particular area that I work in is called paleobiology. I use my understanding of bone structures of modern animals to make extrapolations to the fossil record."

"When fossils are found, people try to identify and understand the fossil itself. But my research goes beyond that. I want to try and understand something about the animal when it was living — how long did it take to grow, what kind of factors affected its growth, did it have any disease, was it male or female."

"My second book is called . This book is about is the history of life on earth from a perspective of the African continent. It’s like a big picture story. The book was aimed at the high school level but can also be enjoyed equally by adults.One of my very big interests is to promote science through different platforms."

"Kids have so much information about the prehistoric world, it is unreal. They know the geological time, they know about predators and prey and the names of so many dinosaurs."

"South Africa certainly has unique issues. As you know, our country has the legacy of the apartheid. So for me, as an Indian woman, growing up in South Africa meant that there were certain restrictions — which universities I could attend, what I could do. If you look at the numbers of black women in science in South Africa"

"I often work with the Association for South African Women in Science and Engineering and I’m very involved in trying to promote and encourage young people to come into science"

"I was lucky enough to be mentored by Dr. Botha de Meillon, the doyen of African Anopheles mosquitoes and author of several books on the topic, who encouraged me to embark on post-graduate studies at Wits University."

"Throughout my career, my research has focussed on the mosquitoes that transmit malaria parasites and how to control them. I have studied their morphology, chromosomes, and isoenzymes, cross-mated them, and bred them in huge numbers in the laboratory."

"The project I was involved in, in northern South Africa, looked at the effectiveness of reactive or targeted IRS (responding only when there was a malaria case) versus proactive IRS (the standard IRS blanket spraying program carried out at the beginning of the season) and how much each cost per annum."

"Entomology is quite often neglected but is critically important if real control or elimination is to be achieved. Capacity building in entomology would also be a crucial aspect that could be addressed by the savings made in targeted IRS."

"It's hard for anybody. There are people who are comfortable -- I don't know what the percentage of the people who are comfortable or are not comfortable [is], with people being differently able. I wrote in my book"

"It might have to do with how my mother was, and I observed her dealing with people who were different and as matter of fact and equal to anybody else, as deserving of respect and kindness. People have asked me over the years, "How do you work with people who are differently abled?" I always say,"

"I just have to learn what their special needs are. And what I'm going to do with them, I do with everybody. I want to find out what they're capable of, not what they're not capable of -- I mean, we know what they're not capable of, but it's so different for everyone, even if you don't have a physical disability."

"Everybody underestimates. And then there are people that think, am I a freak? Am I kinky? Is this strange? And I always say, "No." Find the person who loves to do what you love to do, and then you'll have the best relationship."

"If you're with somebody you feel is judging you when you make a suggestion, give it a try if you're really attracted to the person, but I wouldn't stick around for that."

"There are still many unconscious biases that prevent building a workplace where everybody is appreciated, respected and treated equally. Unfortunately."

"We tend to think that numerical gender parity is a good achievement in itself and that increasing the number of women fellows within institutes and academies is a valuable milestone," Diab said in her presentation."

"She continued, “However, gender transformation involves far more than achieving gender parity. It is a shift from a focus on statistics to a deeper dimension that embraces an understanding of the needs and aspirations of all people, especially women."

"Addressing only the notion of parity in numbers is not enough. We need to take bolder steps,"

"Institutions and academies worldwide should give more visibility to women scientists."

"TWAS has great potential to play a powerful gender-transformative role and to influence norms and practices in science academies across the developing world. TWAS draws its fellows, prize winners and attendees at events from multiple countries and also has five regional partners through which it can play an influential role.” And finally"

"Achieving gender transformation requires the engagement of both men and women. It's not only a men's or women's responsibility: we can travel this journey together"

"For me it was worth trying out a few different things until I found what I liked. Even though it might have seemed undirected at the time, I ended up with some really useful skills"

"Most influential at the start of my academic career was Lev Vygotsky’s work: Mind in Society and Thought and Language. As a mathematics education researcher I am always working between educational theory and literature in mathematics education. With my early work on teaching mathematics in multilingual classrooms, David Pimm’s book Speaking Mathematically was pivotal in turning my attention to mathematical language more generally. More recently, with my interest in mathematical knowledge in and for teaching and particularly what is produced as mathematics in teacher education practice, influential resources are Basil Bernstein’s Pedagogy, Symbolic Control and Identity, and Anna Sfard’s Thinking as Communicating and then the extensive work done by Deborah Ball in the past decade. I could go on, as I enjoy reading, and spend time relaxing with whodunnit."

"Interesting as I think about this, Eva Hoffman’s Lost in Translation had an immense effect on me. I happened to read this while I was working on my PhD, and it provided a different gaze on what it meant to learn and live in a language that was not your mother tongue, or as she called it, the language of her heart and emotions. I have since read much of her work, the most powerful of which was After Such Knowledge: Meditations on the Holocaust. The latter, a philosophical and social commentary rather than an academic text, has contributed significantly to my understanding of the social world, as well as some of my own location in history."

"I think our whole field of educational research in South Africa is relatively young. There is so much we need to know more about, and from the empirical base of our schools, classrooms and learners. I think the transition years from primary into secondary mathematics what teachers need to know and do to teach across subjects at that level are very poorly understood. This is critical in mathematics where the move to greater abstraction and working with symbolic forms emerges. It is also a critical point where we need to know more about what it means to learn and teach mathematics in a dominant minority but extremely powerful language (English)."

"Broadly my time is shared between supporting the professional development work we do in schools, and doing and supporting the research that is linked to this work, with a large proportion of time supporting full time doctoral students in the project. I teach less than I did before. I travel internationally a fair amount, to conferences and for other international work I do."

"You have to be vulnerable. You have to recognize you don't know the answers. Good ideas can come from anywhere"

"If you don't know as a leader what your license to operate is from society, then you've got tunnel vision. So it's understanding the context, what society expects, what the organization needs, and having to adapt yourself and evolve.” Asked about the way forward"

"Once you get a big role, that's the starting line, not the finishing line. So it's really, how do you understand what the need is from your organization and in society?"

"because then you don’t make assumptions, you don’t take diversity views for granted."

"We need really curious leaders"