Welcoming four new inductees to the College of Fellows

Dear colleagues and students

Induction into the College of Fellows is not just an honour; it’s a symbol of the University of Cape Town’s (UCT) steadfast commitment to excellence, innovation and impact. It marks one of our academics' highest levels of achievement, acknowledging their dedication and contributions that expand the frontiers of knowledge.

This year, we are thrilled to announce the addition of four outstanding members to the prestigious College of Fellows. These remarkable individuals have been selected for their exceptional and original academic work, which truly deserves special recognition.

In their academic careers, our new Fellows have not only exhibited excellence but continually expanded the horizons in their fields, inspired the next generation of scholars, and enriched the global community with their knowledge.

The four distinguished academics recognised for their exceptional work are:

Professor Amrita Pande (Department of Sociology, Faculty of Humanities)

Professor Pande’s rigorous contributions to the field of science and technology studies, gender studies and political economy push us to re-think the world of reproductive technologies in the age of neo-eugenics. Variously described as a “heart- wrenching” ethnography and a “foundational” text on the shape that surrogacy takes in the global south, her first book has been cited 562 times since 2015. It also received an honourable mention at the Adele E Clark book award ceremony for an outstanding socio-cultural study of reproductive processes, experiences, technologies, politics, and/or practices.

She has brought together scholarship, creativity and social responsiveness in 60 other research outputs. She is also the scriptwriter and actor in a multimedia interactive sensory stage performance on surrogacy, intimacy, domesticity and paid work that is based on her research. Staged in 21 cities, six countries to standing ovations, the performance exemplifies ways in which social science research can sensitively yet powerfully influence public discourse about technology, women’s labour, class, national and racial hierarchies.

Professor Mohamed Jeebhay (School of Public Health, Faculty of Health Sciences)

Professor Jeebhay, head of Occupational Medicine in the School of Public Health and previously co-director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre in occupational health (2010—14), is one of the few leading occupational medicine academics in Africa known internationally for his scholarship on allergies and asthma in the workplace. In 2021, he was awarded the Fellowship of the College of Public Health Medicine of South Africa – Occupational Medicine by peer review in recognition of his academic contributions.

He has made important and original scientific contributions – spanning more than two decades – that have informed our scientific understanding, international policies and practice in both occupational and environmental medicine. He has studied the relationship between airborne food allergens, allergy and asthma with specific reference to identifying occupational risk factors and dose-response relationships for allergic airways disease. He has used novel exposure assessment techniques and early inflammatory detection markers in order to develop effective workplace interventions to reduce the incidence of occupational allergy and asthma in various workplace contexts, with major focus on seafood and flour dust allergens aerosolised during various stages of production – from the farm to the fork.

Professor Haris Skokos (Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics, Faculty of Science)

Professor Skokos is a world-leading figure in the mathematical field of nonlinear dynamics. His cutting-edge contributions to the field include the design of mathematical tools for the analysis of chaotic systems and the application of these tools to problems of astronomy, dynamics of particle accelerators, biological physics and physics of solid state.

The highlight of his career is the invention of novel chaos-detection techniques based on the so-called Smaller Alignment Index and its generalised version (SALI and GALI, respectively). Together with the Lyapunov exponents (invented in the XIX century), SALI and GALI indices introduced by Professor Skokos comprise the main numerical tools for the study of systems with complex behaviour.

Professor Catherine Orrell (Desmond Tutu HIV Centre, Faculty of Health Sciences)

Professor Orrell, an associate fellow of the College of Clinical Pharmacologists, has attained an MSc and MMed in clinical pharmacology, diploma in HIV management and PhD whilst working at the Desmond Tutu HIV Centre. She is a full professor in the Department of Medicine since 2021 and heads up her own full self-funded research group within the Desmond Tutu Centre called the Centre for Adherence and Therapeutics.

She is an expert clinical trialist and an international leader in HIV treatment research, especially in medication adherence and pharmacokinetic studies. She has and H-rating of 43 and has published over 100 peer reviewed manuscripts (>5000 citations) in leading medical journals, including The New England Journal of Medicine, and several first, second or corresponding author publications in The Lancet, Lancet Infectious Diseases and other high impact HIV or general medical journals. Her work is highly cited, attesting to her status as a leader in this field.

I am also pleased to announce the three College of Fellows’ Young Researcher Award recipients for 2024:

Dr Leo Boonzaier (Department of Private Law, Faculty of Law)

Dr Boonzaier is a senior lecturer in the Department of Private Law. His main research interests are in the law of obligations, private law theory and the interaction between private law and human rights. He is particularly interested in judicial reasoning and the way the common law develops. A two-time winner of the UCT Faculty of Law’s Annual Research Prize and holder of a Y1 rating from the National Research Foundation, his work has been cited at all levels of the South African judiciary and has been applied by the Constitutional Court.

Dr Gaopalelwe Mathiba (Department of Private Law, Faculty of Law)

Dr Mathiba was appointed as a senior lecturer at UCT in 2022. His body of work has culminated in over 20 publications in peer-reviewed and refereed journals. His commitment to impactful and socially responsive scholarship is most evident in his significant contributions towards the development of sector-specific regulations and policy guidelines for various government departments, including the national departments of Mineral Resources and Energy, as well as Public Works.

Dr Melissa Nel (Department of Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences)

Dr Nel completed her MBChB in 2008 and her PhD in 2016 at UCT. She is a senior lecturer in the Department of Medicine at UCT's Neuroscience Institute, where she leads the Neurogenomics Lab. Her current research focuses on elucidating the genetic basis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and other inherited neuromuscular disorders in African populations, using cutting-edge long-read whole genome sequencing technology in collaboration with the UCT-based Neurology Research Group and the ALS Africa Network.

• View the citations for our new College of Fellows members and Young Researcher Award recipients on the feature page on the UCT website.

Please join me in celebrating this remarkable achievement of our colleagues as they reach this incredible milestone in their careers. Let us applaud these extraordinary individuals for their contributions to academia and society at large. Their success shines a light on the potential within all of us to pursue excellence in all that we do.

Sincerely

Professor Mosa Moshabela
Vice-Chancellor

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