Frontrunners ascend to the stage at the July 2023 grads
- Wits University
Second black female PHD Mining Engineer graduates this July, and Father Trevor Huddleston and Professor James Sylvester Gates to receive honorary doctorates.
Wits University will celebrate frontrunners at the July graduation ceremonies taking place from 10 – 14 July 2023.
These start with 151 PhD graduates at the morning ceremony on 10 July. Amongst these graduates is Dr Pontsho Twala, the second South African black female mining engineer to graduate from Wits University. The first PhD SA mining engineer graduated in December 2022.
Dr Twala’s PhD, titled An analysis of the developmental potential of artisanal and small-scale mining: a strategy for South Africa makes a valuable contribution to a challenging area for South Africa.
Dr Adwoa Boaduo, a South African-Ghanaian, was the first South African black female with a PhD, her thesis titled A strategic framework for sustainable and responsible artisanal and small-scale gold and diamond mining in Ghana.
This is a noteworthy achievement for the continent and the quest to transform and develop high-level skills for the sector which contributes significantly to the South African economy and continental responses.
Two Honorary Doctorates – Wits honours an anti-apartheid chaplain and a pioneering African American physicist
During this graduation season, Wits University will bestow honorary doctorates upon two distinguished individuals - Father Trevor Huddleston and Professor Sylvester James Gates (Jnr), in recognition of their outstanding contributions to humanity and intellectual enquiry.
Father Trevor Huddleston will be recognised posthumously with an Honorary Doctor of Literature at 14:30 on 10 July 2023. Born in England in 1913, Father Huddleston arrived in Rosettenville, Johannesburg in 1943, and served as a Minister of the Community of the Resurrection Mission in Sophiatown, Orlando and surrounding townships for 13 years. Huddleston was committed to social justice and human rights and this saw him at the frontline of defiance protests alongside activists like Helen Joseph, former president Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela and Ruth First. Upon his departure from South Africa he continued with the anti-apartheid struggle abroad and launched the Anti-Apartheid Movement with Julius Nyerere, the former president of Tanzania in 1959. He is also credited with supporting young musicians such as Hugh Masekela - he bought the jazz legend his first trumpet.
Theoretical physicist Sylvester James Gates (Jnr) will be awarded an Honorary Doctor of Science degree for a lifetime’s contribution to science during the Faculty of Science graduation ceremony at 09:30 on 11 July 2023. Gates was the first at MIT to produce a doctoral thesis on supersymmetry. He was also the first African-American to hold an endowed chair in physics at a major research university in the United States. He was one of the earliest contributors to the fields of supersymmetry, supergravity and superstring theory. Gates’s involvement with Physics and Science in Africa is well documented through the numerous intellectual relationships and partnerships that he drives on the continent. He played a leading role in this review and was foremost in proposing the establishment of the National Institute for Theoretical Physics, of which Wits University subsequently hosted one of the three nodes. A widely respected scientist, he contributed to the Large Hadron Collider at CERN and was significantly involved in many other large-scale infrastructures in Physics, Astronomy and Cosmology.
For more information on the graduations and a glimpse of areas covered by our PhD graduates, please click here.