Steering Committee

Professor Brendon Barnes (Chair)

Vice-Dean (Research, Postgraduate Studies, and Innovation: Humanities of the University of Johannesburg

Professor Brendon Barnes is a Professor of Psychology and Vice Dean (Research, Postgraduate Studies, and Innovation) in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Johannesburg. He writes in psychology, environmental health, and justice and has worked on studies of air pollution, housing, lead poisoning, mercury, water and sanitation, and climate change. He has won teaching, academic citizenship, and research awards, and is known to champion the integration of justice into environmental and climate psychology.

Dr Mongezi Mdhluli

Chief Research Operation Officer in the Office of the South African Medical Research Council President

Mongezi Mdhluli is the Chief Research Operation Officer (CROO) in the office of the SAMRC President. He is responsible for the research operations of the SAMRC, the Project Management Office, Research Operations (including laboratory operations) Ethics Committee and the Research Integrity Office, and overseeing the efficient operations of the Insectary and PUDAC.

Prior to the CROO position, Mongezi was employed in the SAMRC as a Scientist and then moved to head the supply Chain Management Division. Mongezi completed his PhD at the University of the Western Cape and MBA at the University of Stellenbosch Business School.

Ms Mastoera Sadan

Mastoera Sadan is a social policy analyst who has twenty-seven years professional experience.

Ms Sadan has worked at a senior management level in the national government of South Africa for the past eighteen years. She has also worked in the NGO sector, at the Institute for Democracy in South Africa (IDASA) and at the University of the Western Cape. Her expertise is in social policy and poverty and inequality. Currently, she is the Chief Sector Expert: Social, in the National Planning Commission (NPC) Secretariat, Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation (DPME) in the Presidency. Until 2018 she was the Programme Manager of the Programme to Support Pro-poor Policy Development (PSPPD II) in the DPME. She successfully managed this research and capacity building Programme over an eleven-year period from 2007 – 2018, where she managed R150m in funding. During this time, she also managed the National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS), South Africa’s national panel study from 2006 – 2018 in the DPME. Prior to the PSPPD she worked in the Policy Coordination and Advisory Services (PCAS) in the Presidency. Mastoera is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Johannesburg, she holds a MSc in Social Policy and Planning from the London School of Economics (LSE) and was a Visiting Scholar at the University of Oxford from 2002-2003.

Mr Vusi Malele

Deputy Director: High-End Skills at the Department of Science and Innovation

Dr Malele is the Deputy Director: High-End Skills at the Department of Science and Technology (DST). He is currently a doctoral candidate in Industrial Engineering at the Tshwane University of Technology. He holds a Master's in Engineering Sciences (Electronics and Computer Science) from the University of Stellenbosch He also holds a certificate in Managing Public Policy from the Wits School of Governance. His working experience has included being an educator, an engineer, a lecturer, a research professional and a manager. He also sits on the steering committees of other Centres of Excellence. His working experience has included being a teacher, an engineer, lecturer, research professional and manager. He also sits on the steering committees of other DST-NRF Centres of Excellence (CoEs).

Dr Makobetsa Khati

Executive Director of the Research Chairs and Centres of Excellence directorate at the National Research Foundation

Dr Khati holds a BSc Honours in Public Health from the University of Cape Town. He completed his MSc at Imperial College London and his DPhil in Molecular Pathology at Oxford University where he subsequently was also a post-doctoral fellow at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology. In addition, he was a Visiting Scientist at the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego, California. Dr Khati spent 10 years at the Council for Scientific Industrial Research (CSIR), first as Research Group Leader and later as Head of Department at the Emerging Health Technology unit. He also worked at the Institute for Infectious Diseases at UCT where he currently holds an Honorary Professorship.

Mr Nathan Sassman

Director: Centres of Excellence at the National Research Foundation

Mr Sassman is the Director: Centres of Excellence at the National Research Foundation (NRF). He holds a BSc from the University of the Western Cape, BEd and MEd degrees from the University of Cape Town, and an MBA from the Business School Netherlands in Buren in the Netherlands. He also received training in financial management from Price Waterhouse & Coopers, in internal financial controls from the National Treasury and in negotiation skills from the (former) South African Management Development Institute. His working experience has included being an educator, as well as working for the national Department of Education, the national Department of Provincial and Local Government, and at the European Union Foundation for Human Rights.

Dr Robin Drennan

Director: Research Development – Research and Innovation

Robin Drennan has a PhD in Chemistry from Rhodes University, awarded for the investigation of pyrotechnic reactions. He has practiced as an applied researcher in a public company, AECI, and a science council, CSIR. He worked at a national funding agency (National Research Foundation) where he managed many different programmes. In 2011 he joined the Wits University as Director for Research Development. His role entails leading, encouraging and supporting research across the University. In 2010 Dr Drennan won a Golden Quill award for research reporting and in 2017 a SARIMA award for distinguished contribution to the Research Management Profession.

Prof. Lauren Graham

Associate Professor and Director of the Centre for Social Development in Africa, University of Johannesburg

Professor Lauren is a Professor and NRF-rated scholar who currently serves as the Director of the Centre for Social Development in Africa. She is a development sociologist working in the field of social development. She brings a sociological lens to this field to understand how social, cultural, political, and intrapersonal factors interact with individual agency to shape development outcomes. Her work has focused on excluded groups including unemployed youth, people with disabilities, and children growing up in adverse contexts. While she is committed to the academic work of conceptualising and executing rigorous research that can build theory, she is equally interested in how evidence can be used to develop innovative solutions that promote better social development outcomes for society’s excluded groups. Her work is thus inherently applied and policy relevant.

DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence in Human Development