UCT inaugural lectures for March 2025

Dear colleagues and students

The University of Cape Town’s (UCT) Inaugural Lecture series is a significant academic tradition that not only honours colleagues who have been promoted to full professorship but also showcases the depth and impact of their scholarship. These lectures offer an opportunity to engage with thought-provoking research that advances knowledge and inspires new ways of thinking.

I am delighted to invite you to join us in March 2025 for the first instalment of this year’s inaugural lecture series, featuring two esteemed professors from different disciplines. These are Professors Shose Kessi and Mignon McCulloch. They will deliver their lectures on Wednesday, 19 March and Thursday, 27 March 2025 respectively, in front of their family members, relatives, friends, students and colleagues.

Professor Shose Kessi (Faculty of Humanities)

Professor Kessi will deliver her lecture, “S#*t happens. A Decolonial Feminist Psychological Reflection on Institutional Racism in Higher Education”, on Wednesday, 19 March 2025. Join us at 18:30 SAST at the Neville Alexander Building, lower campus.

We do not pay sufficient attention to institutional racism in higher education. Debates on transformation in universities often focus on demographic change and do not consider the everyday practices and experiences of staff and students, which often contradict the transformation discourses.

In this lecture, Professor Kessi will present the findings from a photovoice project with black students at UCT that started on the eve of the #RhodesMustFall movement as an example of decolonial feminist mobilisation against institutional racism. She will also reflect, in conversation with black womxn scholars, on the role of the UCT Black Academic Caucus (BAC). This lecture will highlight the complex ways in which identities are negotiated in oppressive contexts and the less visible and ambivalent institutional practices that sustain the status quo.

This trailblazing academic is the dean of the Faculty of Humanities at UCT and a professor in the Department of Psychology. Her research focuses on social and political psychology, decoloniality and community-based empowerment, with a particular interest in identity, transformation and social change.

She pioneered the use of the photovoice methodology at UCT, establishing the university’s first Photovoice Lab in 2013. Her research on student belonging has influenced key transformation initiatives, including curriculum reform and institutional culture shifts. In 2018, she co-founded the Hub for Decolonial Feminist Psychologies in Africa, a first-of-its-kind research space advocating for transdisciplinary and decolonial approaches to psychology. Professor Kessi played a pivotal role in founding the UCT BAC in 2014; and later served on UCT’s Special Executive Task Team, contributing to institutional transformation. Appointed dean in 2019, she continues to advance a vision for a globally impactful, pan-African and decolonial humanities faculty.

She holds a PhD in Organisational and Social Psychology from the London School of Economics and Political Science; and has been a Mandela Fellow at Harvard University’s WEB Du Bois Research Institute. A recipient of the Erik Erikson Award from the International Society for Political Psychology, she has published extensively on racism in higher education and critical psychology. Before academia, she worked in the development sector on women’s empowerment, education and public health issues.

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Professor Mignon McCulloch (Faculty of Health Sciences)

Professor McCulloch will present her inaugural lecture titled “First Aid for Kids Kidneys in Africa and Beyond” on Thursday, 27 March 2025 at 17:30 SAST in the New Learning Centre Lecture Theatre, Anatomy Building, Health Sciences campus.

Professor McCulloch’s lecture will address the growing public health concern of kidney disease worldwide in adults and children. In particular, the lecture will concentrate on using alternative forms of dialysis which does not rely on sophisticated technology, and her work shows that African solutions for African problems exist with good results, which can be applied elsewhere in the world by giving any child needing dialysis an opportunity to receive such treatment. ‘Lessons learned from a regional training program’ will also be presented, reviewing children’s kidney specialists trained at Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital (RCWMCH)/UCT and going back to their home institutions across Africa with a 100% return rate, often the first such doctors in their countries pioneering children’s kidney care.

Professor McCulloch is currently the head of the Clinical Unit of Paediatric Nephrology and Solid Organ Transplantation (including kidney, liver and heart) at RCWMCH; and a senior lecturer at UCT. Her background is in paediatric nephrology and paediatric intensive care. As the deputy chair of the Saving Young Lives Committee, she has been part of a life-saving training programme which used the basics of dialysis training to 600 professionals that resulted in saving 450 lives.

This groundbreaking researcher has held many positions of leadership not only in Africa but also internationally, including president of the South African Paediatric Association, which dealt explicitly with COVID-19 issues during the pandemic as an important advocacy voice for children; president of the South African Transplantation Society; and president of the International Paediatric Transplantation, which promotes paediatric transplantation worldwide. She will also take over the Saving Young Lives Steering Committee chair in 2025.

One of her proudest achievements is hosting the International Paediatric Nephrology Association 2025 as congress president in February 2025 at the Cape Town International Convention Centre with 1 000 international delegates, including 100 sponsored Fellows and first-time nurses.

Her research interests with the team of paediatric nephrologists at RCWMCH include acute kidney injury, not only for children in high-income regions but also in less-resourced settings, as well as access to dialysis and kidney transplantation in infants and children and adolescents.

Professor McCulloch has just completed her PhD, titled Paediatric Acute Kidney Injury Management in an African Setting, and will graduate on 1 April 2025. She has published over 200 peer-reviewed papers (with a research h-index of 32 and an i10-index of 94) and was promoted to full professor in 2018.

• Register to attend the lecture.

These lectures will be moments of celebration, reflection and intellectual discovery as these colleagues present their groundbreaking work.

I encourage all staff and students to attend, engage and be part of these important conversations. Whether you are interested in expanding your knowledge, collaborating on research or simply celebrating academic excellence, these lectures promise to be both insightful and inspiring.

Yours sincerely

Professor Mosa Moshabela
Vice-Chancellor

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• From the UCT Executive
• Campus Announcements