Academic staff celebrated at annual awards
- Wits University
The VC’s awards pay tribute to individual and collective achievements that drive Wits’ reputation as the home of academic excellence and a leader in society.
From rigorous research that shapes the world, to innovative teaching and service champions, the cream of the crop were celebrated at the Vice-Chancellor's Awards on 23 October 2024.
Triumph and excellence were palpable in the air as the University gathered to recognise exceptional staff who have exceeded an already high benchmark in the areas of research, teaching, innovation and social impact, academic citizenship, transformation and service excellence.
Wits prides itself on its reputation of excellence producing leading research and top talent. This is all due to its human talent across various categories.
In an address covering a range of critical areas at the University, Wits Vice-Chancellor and Principal Prof. Zeblon Vilakazi, thanked staff for their dedication.
“We must continue to improve Wits and ourselves as academics and researchers so that Wits continues on the journey of boundless opportunities,” said Vilakazi.
In the awards aimed at academic staff, the recipients are clearly strategist adapting to the now while playing the long game.
Research Award
Prof. Lizette Koekemoer in the Wits Research Institute in Malaria and Prof. Marius Pieterse from the School of Law were named joint winners of this prestigious award.
The Vice-Chancellor’s Research Award is the highest accolade for achievement in research at Wits. The purpose of the award is to acknowledge the achievements of an exceptional Wits scholar who has demonstrated high levels of research excellence over a sustained period.
Koekemoer has dedicated 27 years to the understudied African malaria vector. She has established several new groundbreaking research fields for South Africa, including the sterile insect technique project, and co-raised funds to build the first mass-rearing facility in the country and the continent. In 2022, there were 249 million malaria cases globally that led to 608,000 deaths in total. Of these deaths, 76% were children under five-years.
Urban public law scholar Pieterse has advanced human rights and urban governance, raising awareness of the importance of law in urban studies, while highlighting the importance of urban context and governance in public law. His endeavours have influenced policy agendas in the pursuit of urban resilience and sustainability, in South Africa and beyond.
Read about the VC’s Service Excellence Awards aimed at Professional and Administrative Staff.
Vice-Chancellor’s Supervision Award
Winner of the Supervision Award Prof. Andrew Forbes from the School of Physics says his philosophy to supervision is very simple: “I try to work out just how far someone can comfortably go, and then stretch them to exceed even their [own] aspirations.”
Forbes has supervised 66 postgraduate students to completion over the past 20 years, more than half of these from activities in the past nine years at Wits. Of importance, these students have produced more than 150 peer reviewed journal articles in this decade. Furthermore, his PhD students graduate with more than five journal articles by the end of their degrees, and often one in a Nature-level journal.
Postgraduate research supervisors are critical to advancing the knowledge project through facilitating the development of the next generation of scholars. Forbes is also acknowledged as a ‘supervisor of supervisors’ guiding young academics in their supervision role until they are established.
Academic Citizenship Awards:
Individual Award (All about Birds and the Bees)
Associate Prof. Chevonne Reynolds was honoured with the Individual Award for her commitment to citizen science. She spearheaded the Jozi Bee Hotel Project, engaging over 350 Johannesburg residents in urban bee monitoring. Regionally, as a steering committee member of the Southern African Bird Atlas Project, she advances ornithological research across South Africa. Her work bridges scientific research and public engagement, promoting environmental stewardship and addressing critical biodiversity and climate change issues. Her initiatives have generated valuable scientific data while fostering community connections and ecological awareness. #Sustainability
Team Award
The Academic Citizenship Team Award went to the clinical pharmacy team in the Department of Pharmacy and Pharmacology. The work of this team is familiar to many Witsies as they often conduct health screenings on campus and beyond. The team has developed and established an innovative screening and testing programme called (STEPPS) to equip pharmacy students with essential primary care skills to screen for non-communicable diseases, HIV, and mental health, which are all critical health challenges in South Africa. The team consists of Ane Orchard, Muhammed Vally, Amber Cheng, Razeeya Khan, Fatima Kathrada and David Bayever.
Transformation Award
Prof. Joel Quirk in Political Studies scooped this award. Quirk has been working to reform Wits policies and procedures regarding gender-based harms since 2012. He has helped to draft, refine, coordinate and secure approval for five distinct university policies relating to gender harms. Thanks to these reforms, Wits now has stronger protections against secondary victimisation, recusal provisions for conflicts of interest, and a ban on sexual relationships between staff and undergraduates.
Innovation and Impact Award
Wits believes that innovation is the “successful deployment of new research ideas or methods to benefit society”. In this context an innovation is any positive social impact arising out of research findings, and/or a commercial impact arising from new knowledge.
In this category, Prof. Claudine Storbeck, Director of the Centre for Deaf Studies in the Wits School of Education, was lauded for using research to drive pioneering programmes. She has been the power behind creating spaces for developing and nurturing Deaf people to become equipped and empowered to become critical thinkers and to take their rightful place in the academic world through their participation in the Centre, a human incubator and accelerator creating sustainability from this deserving community.
Teaching Awards:
Individual award winner
Dr Sadhna Mathura received the Vice-Chancellor’s Individual Teaching Award recognising three areas of work. Over a few years she piloted several interventions including workshops for lab training and writing skills which saw an improvement in the student pass rate for this course, to name just one achievement. She is also the recipient of the Faculty of Science’s Teaching Award.
Team award winners
A team from the School of Law are the worthy recipients of this award. Comprising Dr Desai Colgan as the subject specialist, Dr Jean Moore the writing specialist and Mr Wanda Ndlozi as the lead administrator, the trio collaborate on the Research Essay course aimed at final year Bachelor of Laws (LLB) students. This team has worked together for seven years in an iterative way to enable students to develop writing and legal research skills. The years of dedication and commitment this team has demonstrated is highly commendable and they have also been recognised as the winners of the Commerce, Law and Management Faculty Team Teaching Award this year.
Team award winners
Dr Colette Gordon and Dr Carrie Timlin from the School of Language, Literature and Media produce the Theatre of Blood: Renaissance Drama, a second year writing intensive English course. The course has been developed, taught, and tested over the last five years. Throughout the years the pair has reflected, researched and responded to the course feedback from students and examiners. The inappropriate use of AI among students prompted a partnership with the digital annotation company. Among other innovations in this course, the training and use of annotation to read and understand text has made a significant impact with recorded positive feedback from students. They have also developed a co-teaching model that is scalable and can be used across various courses in the School, Faculty and the institution.