Women Academics From South Africa

"I am involved in collaborative research projects with Yale University, Edinburgh University and the University of Liverpool among others which variously work on fire-grazer interactions, inter-continental savanna comparisons, the importance of land-atmosphere feedbacks, and pursuing a global theory of fire."

"Young people still care about the problems of the world and are willing to solve them, and they know that having fun is part of life"

"In other words, a scientist needs vision."

"I work on understanding the dynamics of savanna ecosystems in the context of global change. My work integrates field ecological data, remote sensing, modelling, and biogeochemistry."

"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."

"My research helps create the landscapes and environments that support us"

"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)."

"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."

"Being creative is a huge part of being a good scientist. You need to find new ways to look at old problems and you must be able to design experiments that reveal new information"

"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."

"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"

"I moved into teaching – rather than set out to teach, or work in education. When I began my working career as a secondary mathematics teacher, I had no intention of becoming an academic and researcher in education. My first post was in a so-called ‘coloured’ school in Cape Town, a school with a strong political identity tied to the Unity Movement."

"Psychology was my second major – this also wasn’t in my original plan – I had thought I would do Applied Maths, but I enjoyed Psychology in first year and so continued, and then enjoyed work on child development, learning and so on."

"We need really curious leaders"

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

"I always loved mathematics, and was inspired by particular teachers in both primary and secondary schools, and so I went to University to study mathematics."

"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."

"I gave “extra mathematics lessons” while I was doing my degree and enjoyed this (as well as earning quite well from it) and so went on from a B Sc to do my professional teaching diploma."

"They say God laughs when we make plans: He's watched me trace my path away from war-scarred foreign lands, Where AIDS cases and unmarked graves are common as grains of desert sand, Where solemn bargains for slaves are made each day by neighbouring clans; Where I grew up. Soon as I left the womb, I was running; There was always something to escape, be it Ebola Or just that drunkard driving that Range Rover, Racing over potholes, ten shots from being sober... That was me; ever escaping, Hoping, praying and close-shaving, Evading nature's worst and Mankind at its most perverse; No helping hand to rescue me, I was the perfect refugee - See, Ive been arrested, beaten, Seized by police for no reason, Always fleeing by my teeth's skin, Till leaving, Coming to Heathrow, And finding work, and peace, and love With running no longer in my blood."

"I hope we will have developed partnerships and cooperative relations with scholars in other parts of the world, especially in the Global South. For me, such pooling of intellectual and material resources will generate new and necessary ways of engaging with the world's challenges."

"I love the creativity that emerges from a university community. Working at Penn State with my colleagues and students feels like being exposed to a constant series of illuminating ideas and opportunities for creative collaborations."

"In August 1996, while I was a Research Fellow at the University of Cape Town, I was struck by a series of news stories in South African newspapers in which the visual and verbal imagery seemed to me highly distinctive. I kept a collection of clippings and eventually these became the basis for my PhD on images of Islam. In the course of my studies, I conducted archival research into colonial-era paintings, newspapers and popular cultures in South Africa, and read these in juxtaposition with contemporary literary representations of Islam. This trajectory of images across two centuries became the material for a theory about representations of slavery and Islam in South Africa."

"I love reading and visiting museums and galleries, which is also part of my work. Talking with friends over a home-cooked meal is my favorite way to spend an evening."

"I enjoy the reading and thinking as well as the discussion and exchange that an academic life involves. I love the smell of old books and newspapers in libraries and archives, and the possibility of original ideas that emerge from long hours in a quiet place."

"Through focusing on childhood experiences in Kerssnuitsels, marketed as a youth memoir, Van Heerden succeeds to convey her gradual awakening to the discriminating binaries imposed on women of her cultural and historical context in late 19th century and early 20th century South Africa."

"As political scientist De Klerk (1975:xiv) claims, ‘[t]he key to the Afrikaners is Calvinism’ and the strict doctrines enforced by the state and church can be said to have inhibited Van Heerden’s self-defining quest in her writing since she might have been ostracised (or imprisoned), in my opinion, if she imparted her more radical political opinions or openly discussed her sexuality as ‘mannish [lesbian]'."

"She gave up practicing medicine and came to Harrismith to farm cattle and was legendary among the boere here."

"My analysis is underpinned by relevant life writing and feminist criticism, such as the notion of female."

"It investigates questions of nationalism, gender and sexuality in the autobiographical texts of Petronella van Heerden and Elsa Joubert."

"Nobody gives you opportunities; they present themselves to you. And it's up to you to see them and to seize them, no matter what other people may say – you can achieve what you believe"

"Follow your passion, but understand that passions shift over time, and that’s okay. Balance motherhood and ambition, reflect often, and always be building towards a purposeful legacy."

"This is very important for capacity building, research training of postgraduate students and for developing teaching capacity in teaching current hot topics in science."

"The common factor between all these projects is the interest in novel high surface area electrochemically active nanomaterials which could benefit the focus of either sensors or energy applications."

"Preliminary work includes the development of polymer electrodes for sulphonamide detection, with very sensitive and reproducible analytical reporting in laboratory standard solutions as well as municipal tap."

"Each environmental problem requires careful analysis of the chemical nature of the problem before the best suited methods for analysis and monitoring may be developed."

"Make it count, because how we use these opportunities now will shape what’s possible for generations of women after us."

"Electroanalysis and electrocatalysis are electrochemically driven analytical protocols for measurement and monitoring of a wide range of environmental pollutants, depending on the chemical transformations that give rise to the pollution effect."

"My story is not just about overcoming barriers—it’s about building bridges for others"

"The practical component of oceanography required long periods at sea, but the boats weren’t equipped for women, and the crew were not ready to accept a person of colour as a professional... By actively sharing my journey, I’ve become a tangible example for female students to explore careers based on capability, not stereotypes"

"We drew water from a river about two miles [about 3km] away. The river where kids went to swim and women laundered their dirty clothes, was the same river we drew water from to fill our calabashes and plastic jerrycans."

"I want us [Africans] to have access to safe drinking water, just as is the case in developed countries such as USA and in Europe."

"We need these technologies, not just for industrial use, but also for domestic use, for everyday use. So that individual households can mount them in their homes."

"Well, I climbed the academic ladder from tutorial fellow to full professor. In the university there are four to five key performance areas: teaching undergraduate and supervising postgraduate students; research, development and innovation; community outreach; international networks and management or leadership. I have had significant outputs in the five areas."

"I hope we can achieve gender equality where women and girls are empowered to ensure inclusive and quality education for all."

"I am particularly interested in water research because water is simply vital. Nanotechnology has an essential role to play in purification techniques. Our current methods can filter water to levels that are safe for domestic use, or by up to 80%, but we want to refine them to filter [out] about 100% of water contaminants in one filtration cycle."

"My dream is to produce a commercially viable water nanofilter that removes contaminants in one filtration cycle, enabling rural African families to install affordable water filters in their homes. It is to have a continent where everyone can access safe and clean drinking water."

"We learn a lot through interaction in real time and in a real shared physical space. Of course, we have attentive support for transition to campus learning and counselling for any student facing difficulty balancing campus presence, online learning and interaction."

"I passionately believe we can take such students through an immersive university experience which they enjoy and through which they succeed. It is a complex journey for our students, and I appreciate that the scaffolding needs to be in place throughout their journey. Perhaps even before and post-graduation."