UWC Natural Science Faculty

of our science undergraduates continue their studies at UWC and enter into the post-graduate programme on the completion of their first degrees. Research productivity as measured by the quality and quantity of research publications and conference presentations has also increased significantly with the growth of our post-graduate student body. UWC’s Faculty of Natural Sciences continues on its upward teaching and learning and research and innovation trajectory and our progress is reflected in the number of accolades and awards received by our staff and students over the last year. These include the 2014 DST award for the Distinguished Woman Scientist for Physical and Engineering Sciences to Professor Priscilla Baker of the Department of Chemistry; the 2014 Gilchrist Award for marine sciences to Professor Mark Gibbons of the Department of Biodiversity and Conservation Biology and the Silver Medal of the Medical Research Council to Professor Alan Christoffels of the South African National Bioinformatics Institute for his contribution to research capacity development in the Health Sciences. Professor Baker and Professor Iwuoha (also of the Department of Chemistry) were the recipients of the Vice Chancellor’s Junior and Senior Research Awards respectively for 2014. Amongst our student successes, the success of our four undergraduate computer science students; Eugene de Beste, Warren Jacobus, Nicole Thomas and Saeed Natha in the World Undergraduate Super Computing competition held in Liepzig, Germany in June 2014 is a significant highlight. After winning the South African leg of the competition at the end of 2013, Team Udubs was joined by Pieter Malan from the University of Stellenbosch and Ellen Nxala from the University of Fort Hare for the Liepzig finals where they were the overall winners, successfully competing against teams from several Universities around the world including MIT, University of Edinburgh and the Chinese University of Science and Technology. Closer to home two Masters students from the School of Pharmacy; Michelle Theunissen and Frank Zindo, received prestigious Boehringer Ingelheim Young Scientist Awards, in both the laboratory based research and practice-based/clinical research categories respectively, at the 2014 annual conference of the Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences. A notable first for the Faculty was the first award in 42 years to a UWC postgraduate student, Shireen Mentor a MSc student in the Department of Medical BioSciences, of the prestigious Wyndham Prize for Physiology at the 2014 Conference of the Physiology Society of Southern Africa. Some of the other recent research highlights from the Faculty include the significant contribution of UWC scientists to the Tsetse Fly genome project which was published in the journal Science in 2014 and the launch of the Cape Flats Nature Reserve Hydrogen Fuel Cell Power Generator by the Director General of the DST Dr Phil Mjwara. The aim of the HFCPG, an experimental prototype emanating from the HySA programme led by Professor Bruno Pollet of UWC’s South African Institute for Advanced Materials Chemistry, is to demonstrate the concept, feasibility and use of platinum based fuel cell technology for decentralized electrical energy generation. The most visible manifestation of the University of Western Cape’s commitment to developing and sustaining a world class Science Faculty at UWC is the completion of the R220 million new Chemical Sciences Building in August, 2014. Like its sister building (the New Life Sciences Building completed in 2010) the new Chemical Sciences building is state-of-the-art not only in its aesthetics but more importantly in the innovative design of their teaching spaces and research laboratories which provide the necessary platforms for producing the graduates who will drive South Africa’s science and technology future in the 21st century. While the availability of world class infrastructure is important to the accelerated success of the science research programme at UWC it is the commitment and dedication of the academic and support staff working with the under-graduate and post-graduate students who will ultimately determine the trajectory of that success.