Alumni in the spotlight April 2022
- Wits Alumni Relations
Catch up on a wrap of Witsie awards, appointments and newsmakers from the past month.
Awards
Human rights lawyer, social justice activist and founder of the Health Justice Initiative Fatima Hassan (BA 1993, LLB 1995) was named the recipient of the 2022 Calgary Peace Prize for her “exemplary contribution toward justice in the international struggle against global health inequality”.
South African philanthropist and founder of 67 Blankets Carolyn Steyn (BA 1982) was awarded the highest French Order of Merit the Chevalier de l'Ordre national du Mérite (Knight of the French National Order of Merit).
Appointments
Zane Dangor (MM 1998, LLM 2016) has been appointed the director general of the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO). Prior to joining DIRCO, he served as interim representative of the United Nations Population Fund for the African Union and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. He has extensive experience in the human rights field, specialising in transitional justice issues.
Discovery appointed Bridget van Kralingen (BCom 1985) as an independent non-executive. She recently retired from IBM in New York, where she was the senior vice president of global markets, accountable for IBM's revenue, profit and operations in all 172 countries in which it operates. Prior to that she served as chief executive of both IBM's industry platforms, software and blockchain businesses and its global consulting business.
Rhodes University Council has elected the executive director at the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls, Gugu Ndebele (PDM 2013, MM 2017), as its new deputy chairperson. 
She has a combined experience of over 30 years in education and social development and is recognised as a children’s rights leader. Ndebele is also on the executive of the Gauteng Central Region of the Independent Schools Association of Southern Africa.
United Arab Emirates based fin-tech company, StartX, appointed Zareef Minty (LLB 2017) as chief operating officer.
Pascal Motsoasele (GDE 2002, MEng 2017) has been appointed as a Fellow of the South African Institute of Electrical Engineers. He is a consultant engineer and currently the acting automation asset manager at Rand Water's Strategic Asset Management division.
Megger Africa appointed local senior applications engineer David D Bavin (GDE 2003) as senior applications engineer.
George Konidaris (BSc 2000, BSc 2001) has been promoted to associate professor with tenure at Brown University Computer Science effective as of 1 July 2022. Konidaris joined the university in 2016 after completing postdoctoral research at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory from 2011 to 2014 and then serving as assistant professor at Duke University from 2014 to 2016. Since 2016, he's also worked as chief roboticist for Realtime Robotics, a start-up he co-founded to commercialise the invention of a specialized robot motion planning processor capable of sub-millisecond planning.
Derek du Preez (BSc 1978, BSc Hons 1982) has been appointed chief 
operation officer of Trevali Mining Corporation. He has more than 25 years of experience working at mining operations across Canada, Australia, and Africa, where he has held operational, project and technical roles with increasing levels of responsibility. Most recently, he served as chief technical officer and has successfully completed several critical projects.
Dr Nomonde Nolutshungu (MBBCh 1992, TM&H 2000) was appointed as the new head of the Gauteng Department of Health. According to the Department of Health press statement, Dr Nolutshungu was the minister counselor for wellbeing (Health Attaché) in Washington District of Columbia, US, prior to her appointment. Her obligations included “overseeing and driving South Africa’s tact for Global Public Health with the public authority of the United States, its offices, scholarly establishments, the private area, and enormous magnanimous associations”.
Newsmakers
Rupert Cruise (BSc Eng 1994, MSc Eng 1999), CEO and founder of Magway, the UK-based sustainable logistics company, announced that the company secured its first commercial customer in the form of a large Fortune 500 company. Magway is a zero-emission delivery system consisting of carriages running at speed, on a track, on a network of overground or underground pipes.
Yandiswa Xhakaza (BEd 2010, PDM 2017) is the director of the UCT Online High School and is passionate about helping children reach their full potential through education. She participated in an interview with Business Talk, unpacking her role as well as future plans of the school.
Professor Frances Duncan (BSc 1982, BSc Hons 1983, PhD 1993) is the head of the School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences at Wits, and he shared insights on the locust infestation in the Northern Cape and Eastern Cape following the regions’ longest drought in 100 years.
Kavi Pather (BSc 2006, BSc Hons 2007) shared how artificial intelligence is changing business.
Modiegi (Susan) Njeyiyana (BA Hons 2017) is a lecturer at Stellenbosch University, who recently completed her master’s degree in linguistics. She shared her passion for education, specifically in the deaf community.
Research
Dr Warren Lowman (MBBCh 2002, MM 2011) clinical microbiologist and infection prevention and control specialist at Wits Donald Gordon Medical Centre, was lead author of a study published in The Journal of Hospital Infection, which showed that ultraviolet room decontamination technology paired with manual cleaning protocols decreased the transmission of Enterobacterales by 23% in a hospital setting.
Dr Shüné Oliver (BSc 2001, BSc Hons 2002, MSc 2009, PhD 2015), Dr Basil Brooke (BSc 1994, BSc Hons 1999, PhD 2001) and Dr Givemore Munhenga (PhD 2010) wrote an article about their recently published paper on signs of mosquito insecticide resistance in South Africa.
Art
Celebrated artist Tracey Rose (BA FA 1997) was profiled in New Frame about her retrospective exhibition Shooting Down Babylon, which “demands both quiet contemplation and a macabre sense of humour”.
Blueprint for the DisOrder of Things is Christine Dixie’s (BA FA 1989) current exhibition at the Wits Art Museum. Playing on the title of Michel Foucault’s book The Order of Things, Dixie offers a body of work that is driven by the emotional, social, and political changes that have come about as a result of 网易体育. The artworks are presented across multiple media, including artists books, monoprints, ‘veils’ and a video.
Books
Felicity Stone (BA 1980, PDipEd 1980) was interviewed about her book Maggie Mom Me: A South African Memoir.
Jonathan Ancer (BA 1993) released a new book: Mensches in the Trenches - Jewish Foot Soldiers in The Anti-Apartheid Struggle (Batya Bricker Book Projects, 2022) and chatted about it to South African Jewish Report.