Department of Chemistry, University of Pretoria

A fantastic day at the 2025 Honours Student Presentations!🔬Proud of our Honours students for delivering excellent work across analytical, organic, inorganic, physical & materials chemistry. Thank you to everyone who attended and supported our future scientists! 👩‍🔬

Congratulations to Prof Lynne Pilcher on her appointment as Associate Editor of the Journal of Chemical Education (ACS)! A wonderful recognition of her contributions to Organic Chemistry education and Systems Thinking in chemistry. 👏 She will focus on Organic Chemistry education and Systems Thinking, advancing global excellence in .

Megan de Beer was awarded the James Moir Award for 2024 by the South African Chemical Institute (SACI) for her outstanding performance at Honours level, at an award ceremony held at the University of Limpopo on Friday 28 March 2025. This accolade is awarded annually to one student per tertiary institution across South Africa. Congratulations Megan!

Proudly UP!

CRYSTAL CLEAR: Prof Melanie Rademeyer’s journey into chemistry began with simple experiments in her mom’s kitchen, observing how salt crystals formed and grew. Today, she’s a researcher and associate professor in UP’s Department of Chemistry, where she’s harnessing that same curiosity to advance sustainable energy solutions through crystallography. Her recent National Research Foundation rating recognises her as an established researcher. Read more: https://ow.ly/K23H50U8bvy

Prof Kevin Naidoo (UCT) recently inspired staff and students alike at the annual Victor Pretorius Memorial lecture with two talks. The annual VP memorial lectures aims to highlight prominent researchers in South Africa in various research areas.

Congratulations to Prof Forbes and Prof Langmi on on their recent achievement of being featured in Stanford University and Elsevier's 2024 list of the World's Top 2% Scientists. A remarkable accomplishment, well done! Read more here: https://top2percentscientists.com/stanford-elsevier-top-scientists-list-2024/

🎉 Congratulations to the newest postgraduates of the Department of Chemistry! 🧪 Your hard work, dedication, and passion for discovery have led you to this moment: PhD: Shalene Bothma; MSc: Bernice Currie, Geyan Kempkes, Rachel McCondochie, Mbavhalelo Mudau, and Lanzo van Heerden. Well done! 🌟

Professor Patricia Forbes, incumbent of the Rand Water Research Chair in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Pretoria has been elected as the National Representative of the Analytical Chemistry division of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC).
Read more, https://bit.ly/4cFJ2Qc


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Department of Chemistry, University of Pretoria
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Our Honours students recently wowed us with their 1st semester research presentations on everything including environmental, natural product, synthetic, and theoretical chemistry! Great job, Hons group! 🌟

Researchers from Makerere University (Uganda) and STI visited the NMR facility last week as a start to establish a scientific facility with NMR benchmarking as a main goal. Welcome to UP!

Prof. Lynne Pilcher has been selected to receive an award from the American Chemical Society Committee on Environment and Sustainability that recognizes those who have made exemplary contributions to modernizing the chemistry curriculum to include sustainable development, circularity, green chemistry, and life cycle thinking. The award was based on the output of Micke Reynders’ MSc project introducing systems thinking through the topic of surfactants in first year chemistry, looking at the chemistry, the impact on the economy and the benefits and hazards of surfactants for society and the environment. Congratulations Lynne!