Steering Committee

The DSTI-NRF CoE-MaSS is governed by a Steering Committee. The Committee meets twice a year, and consists of external individual members, founding node leaders, and ex officio members:

Chairperson (Kerstin Jordaan)

Prof Kerstin Jordaan is a full professor in Mathematics in the Department of Decision Sciences at the University of South Africa as well as the part-time Executive Director of the South African Mathematics Foundation. She served the academic community as elected President of the South African Mathematical Society from 2016-2019. Her research interests are Special Functions and Orthogonal polynomials. She holds an NRF B rating and was awarded a Royal Society Newton Advanced Fellowship for her research in these areas. She currently serves as chairperson of the National Research Foundation Evaluation and Ratings panels, as Council member of AIMS South Africa, and Advisory Board member of the National Graduate Academy for Mathematical and Statistical Sciences.

DSI representative (Rose Msiza)

Rose Msiza is the Director: Research Support in the Department of Science and Innovation (DSI). She is responsible for policy development and funding of programmes aimed at the development of high-level skills in the areas of Science, Engineering and Technology, including Social Sciences and Humanities. This responsibility entails oversight responsibility over human capital development initiatives, and the implementing agency – the National Research Foundation (NRF). Some of the flagship human capital development initiatives she oversees include the South African Research Chairs Initiative (SARChI) and the Centres of Excellence (CoEs), implemented by the NRF, as well as the Internship Programme implemented by the Human Sciences Research Council. Prior joining the DSI, she was working for the NRF and held different positions, supporting the implementation of country-to-country bi- and multi-lateral agreements, mobility, infrastructure and research capacity development programmes.

Executive Director of the Research Chairs and Centres of Excellence directorate at the National Research Foundation (Makobetsa Khati)

Dr Makobetsa Khati holds a BSc Honours in Public Health from UCT. 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 CSIR. He also worked at the Institute for Infectious Diseases at UCT, where he currently holds an Honorary Professorship.

NWU node leader (Louis Labuschagne)

Prof Louis Labuschagne obtained his PhD in 1988 in the field of Single Linear Operator theory. He started his professional academic career in the same year at Stellenbosch University, moving to the University of Pretoria in 1992. This move also coincided with a shift in his research focus to Operator Algebras and their application to Quantum Theory. After spending 19 years in Pretoria, first at the University of Pretoria and then UNISA from 2001, he took up an appointment at North-West University in January 2011.

UP node leader (Michael Chapwanya)

Dr Michael Chapwanya is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics. He received his PhD from University of Limerick, Ireland, in 2005. He was a postdoctoral fellow at both Simon Fraser Universty, Canada (from 2006 to 2009) and University of Limerick, Ireland (from 2009 to 2010). He has been with the University of Pretoria since 2010.

 UKZN node leader (Rituparno Goswami)

Prof Rituparno Goswami is a Professor and Academic Leader: Research in the School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, UKZN, Durban. He performs frontier research in the field of Astrophysics, Gravitation and Cosmology, and is a C1-rated researcher. He is chairperson of the Academic Sub-committee of National Astrophysics and Space Science Programme (NASSP) and National Coordinator for South African Mathematics Team Competition (SAMTC). He is also the UKZN node leader for the University Capacity Development Programme (UCDP:NCP) and the UKZN node leader for the Centre of Excellence in Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (CoE-MaSS).

 Maseka Lesaoana (UL/SASA, RSA)

Prof Maseka Lesaoana's research interests are in applied statistics and operations research. She obtained her Doctorate in Operations Research from the University of Southampton, UK (1991) and has successfully supervised and mentored students in both statistics and operations research.  She has worked at the National University of Lesotho (NUL), the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), and the national Deptartment of Labour, before joining the University of Limpopo, where she is currently employed on a post-retirement contract.

CoE-MaSS Director (Bruce Watson)

Bruce completed his PhD in multiparameter inverse spectral problems in the 1996. Following that he was a Pacific Institute of Mathematical Sciences Post Doctoral Fellow at the University of Calgary. He worked mainly in the spectral theory of differential operators and their inverse problems for many years, but recently has shifted focus to stochastic, mixing and ergodic processes in vector lattices.

Wits Node Leader (Abdul Kara)

Prof Abdul Kara has been on the staff of the School of Mathematics at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, for over 30 years as a teacher, researcher and administrator. Prof Kara has published widely with collaborators, locally and abroad. His work is highly cited, with a satisfactory Scopus h-index. He  has supervised a number of MSc and PhD students as well as co-supervised a number of other PhD and MSc students to completion. Prof Kara has taught a number of courses with great success at all levels, from first year through to Masters levels.

Wits Director of Research Development (Robin Drennan)

Dr Robin Drennan has a PhD in Chemistry from Rhodes University. He has practiced as an applied researcher in a public company, AECI, and a science council, CSIR. He worked at the NRF, a national funding agency, where he managed many different programmes. In 2011 he joined 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.