Helishia Dirks

Helishia Dirks, from South Africa, is studying for a Master of Health Sciences in Clinical Technology at the Durban University of Technology. She completed her B.Tech in 2005 and completed an additional BA in Applied Psychology on a part-time basis in 2011. As part of her psychology degree, she also became a registered HIV counselor. She is currently working at Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital in the Neurophysiology Department. 

Helishia’s research centers on finding an early biological marker for diagnosing cerebral palsy in  resource-limited settings where MRIs are not freely available, by examining the link between cognition and sleep spindle density. The title of her study is “An assessment of the correlation between reduced sleep spindle density and cognitive decline in patients at risk of developing cerebral palsy in the Western Cape of South Africa.”

Helishia is a fierce advocate for the rights of children and is currently a custodian of the De Kuilen Primary Care Group. She provides regular food and clothing parcels for 12 disadvantaged families of children attending the school. 

Professionally, Helishia serves as a moderator for the post-graduate Electro-Encephalogram (EEG) course for physicians offered at the University of Cape Town. She serves as an examiner for the EEG technician short course offered by the Neurophysiology Department at the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital. And she is also a Facility Evaluator on the Board of Radiology and Clinical Technology for the Health Professional Council of South Africa. 

Maria du Toit

Maria du Toit completed her PhD in 2020 through the Department of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology, University of Pretoria. She received a postdoctoral fellowship from the University of Pretoria in 2022. She is a qualified speech-language therapist working in the academic sector, as clinical lecturer and research supervisor, and in a practice serving low-income families. 

Identification of developmental delays in young children, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, is a major global health challenge. It severely hinders progress towards the fourth Sustainable Development Goal of quality education for all. Maria’s research utilizes innovative technology to make urgently needed decentralized screening possible in communities. Her postdoctoral research builds on her PhD research, by facilitating contextually relevant developmental screening, using mobile health (mHealth) technologies, through local community care workers and early childhood development (ECD) educators. Her focus is on the validation of an mHealth-based developmental screening tool that has been adapted for contextual and linguistic relevance. 

Her main goal is to make developmental screening universally accessible to all community stakeholders working with young children, especially caregivers and ECD educators, to facilitate developmental screening and surveillance and, ultimately, developmental literacy within communities. To help achieve this goal, Maria and her research team have partnered with Kenyatta University to adapt and implement decentralized mHealth-based developmental screening in other low-income African communities.

Maria is described as a highly motivated young academic who enthusiastically pursues the highest standards of work with greatest integrity.

Tsungai Kupeta

Tsungai Kupeta is a Zimbabwean pursuing a PhD in Economics at the University of Cape Town. Her research focuses on climate justice and protection through sustainable transitions in South Africa. The aim of the study is to understand the labor market implications associated with the transition. She grew up in rural areas in Zimbabwe with her single mother (a domestic worker), whom she had to take care of during her high school studies when her mother  was critically ill. Despite all the financial challenges and hardships she faced growing up, she managed to break the school record and become the best-ever student at her Ordinary Level.

Tsungai is committed to empowering women and girls through education so that the gender gap can be closed in the labor market to fight today’s injustices and develop a society for the benefit of generations to come. In line with this, she has mentored several women and young girls to rewrite their GSCE exams in Zimbabwe. She has also organized several outreaches as a peer educator and mentor to high school students in underserved areas in rural Zimbabwe.

Her future goal is to establish a well-coordinated organisation that helps vulnerable women and girls in Zimbabwe, particularly in rural areas, by empowering and mentoring women to become economically independent and socially confident for better livelihoods and sustainable income.

Hilda Dinah Kyomuhimbo

Hilda Dinah Kyomuhimbo was born and raised in Masindi, Uganda. Despite the common perception in her village that sciences were a boys’ specialty, she developed a love for the subject in primary school. Her university journey started in 2011 at Makerere University, studying for a BSc in Industrial Chemistry, and she later attended  University of Nairobi, where she graduated with a Masters in Chemistry. She is currently at University of Pretoria, pursuing a PhD in Chemical Engineering. 

Her current research is focused on incorporating metal and metal oxide nanoparticles in polymer beads to form nanocomposites. The nanocomposites are then used to immobilize the laccase enzyme to improve its lifespan and reusability in environmentally relevant conditions. The improved enzyme will be used to detect organic pollutants in freshwater systems and treat effluents from industries, especially textile and paper, hence minimizing pollution. She believes that using affordable and environmentally friendly materials to eliminate organic pollutants is a significant step toward protecting our environment and the ecosystem against severe hazardous degradation, thus providing improved conditions of living and a healthier environment for the vulnerable groups in our community. Previously, she utilized invasive weeds in Uganda, Bidens pilosa and water hyacinth, to make antiseptics and produce biofuels, respectively. 

On top of community impactful research, Hilda aspires to work as a lecturer and do community outreach in her area to encourage girls to complete their education and attain higher levels required for research careers, since the majority of women opt out after their undergraduate studies. 

Monde Precious Maruza

Monde Precious Maruza, from Botswana, is a medical doctor who is currently pursuing Master of Medicine in Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Stellenbosch University, South Africa.  

In Setswana there is a proverb that says “mosadi ke thari ya Sechaba” which translates to a woman is the pillar of the nation.  It has all the positive connotations of being an incubator to human life and primary nurturer until the offspring is ready to take on the world. Hence, Monde believes if you take care of the women it will reflect in the nation. She is passionate about maternal and perinatal survival. With the shortage of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in Botswana, women outside the cities have difficulty accessing the necessary specialized care. This has made her passionate about taking the services to the people. In just five months, she was able to successfully lead an outreach program in 2021 that handled 164 surgical cases and 200 clinic visits. She plans to return home in the future and keep trying to find strategies to increase maternal and perinatal survival. She intends on bridging the distance between women and the healthcare they need. 

She is currently looking into hypertensives disorders of pregnancy (high blood pressure in pregnancy) for her thesis. Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy contribute significantly to maternal and perinatal morbidity and mortality, especially in low- and middle-income countries.

Patience Masi

Patience Masi, from Malawi, is pursuing a PhD in sociology at the University of Cape Town.  Her research focuses on the drivers and constraints of the expansion of social protection, with Malawi as a case study.  Prior to this, for ten years, she worked in the field of social protection on the largest cash transfer programme in Malawi, the Malawi Social Cash Transfer Programme, where she contributed to the establishment of the programme from a pilot to nationwide coverage targeting 1.2 million people in a population of close to 20 million.  She has also worked as an Economist for the Malawian Government, providing advice to the Finance Minister on how to raise domestic revenue. 

Patience has a passion for development work and has project management experience in various sectors such as nutrition, decentralization, private sector development and social protection.   Using her knowledge, skills, and competencies acquired through formal education, work experience and various extra-mural activities, Patience strives to empower others, especially women, children and the youth, so that they can realise their full potential.

 Looking forward, she hopes to use the skills she acquires from her PhD to influence the development of social protection policy and programmes in Malawi and the region, as one way of reducing poverty and investing in the lives of vulnerable people.

Khona Maziya

Khona Maziya grew up in the Kingdom of Eswatini (formerly Swaziland). The value of education was instilled in her from a young age and, as a result, she excelled in her studies and developed an interest in sciences. She is currently a doctoral candidate in Chemistry at the University of the Witwatersrand. Her research focuses on water remediation strategies using cutting-edge membrane-based filtration techniques. Her research aims to develop nanofiltration membranes and apply them to remove water contaminants that are harmful to human health. The use of these membranes as point-of-use water treatment devices for low-income communities with limited access to clean drinking water is envisaged. 

She holds a Master's degree in Chemistry with distinction from the University of Johannesburg (UJ), where she was recognized by the Golden Key Honorary Society as one of the top 15% for academic excellence and published an article titledHyperbranched polymer nanofibrous membrane grafted with silver nanoparticles for dual antifouling and antibacterial properties against Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa.” Her career goals include becoming a researcher focusing on new technologies for providing sustainable energy and water to rural communities using greener approaches. She seeks to give back to communities that, in comparison to other privileged groups, have limited access to clean water.

Khona is the first person in her family to pursue a PhD, and hopes to serve as a beacon of hope for many young girls and women interested in careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).

Carey Pike

Carey Pike is a 4th year MBChB student and soon-to-be (2023) PhD candidate at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. She graduated with distinction from the University of Cape Town with a BSc (Hons) degree in Chemistry and from Oxford University with an MSc in Pharmacology.

Carey has worked for the Desmond Tutu Health Foundation as the executive research assistant to the Director, Professor Linda-Gail Bekker, since 2016. It was there that she developed her research interests in adolescent health and women’s health, specifically concerning sexual and reproductive healthcare delivery and HIV prevention. She has experience in designing, delivering, and evaluating health education and empowerment programmes for adolescent girls and young women.

Her PhD will focus on the roll-out of multiple HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) modalities (oral tablets and long-acting injectable and vaginal formulations) to diverse young populations, including adolescent girls and young women, in Cape Town, South Africa. Her project will investigate which modalities best support short- and long-term persistence on HIV PrEP, as well as how to implement a PrEP choice platform in a way that is effective, acceptable to young people and healthcare workers, and feasible to bring to scale. Her PhD will be undertaken as part of UCT’s combined MBChB-PhD programme. Carey plans to become a physician-scientist with a focus on sexual and reproductive health.

Sibusiso Tshuma

Sibusiso Tshuma, a Zimbabwean, is registered for a PhD in Publishing Studies at the University of Pretoria. She holds a BA Hons and a Master’s in Publishing Studies, both from the University of the Witwatersrand. She also holds a BA Hons in English from the University of Zimbabwe. 

Sibusiso’s mission is to make reading fun and accessible for black tweens throughout Southern Africa by creating culturally and contextually relevant books. She believes this could be a step towards developing interest in reading, pointing out that the publishing industry currently relies on Eurocentric imports for this age-group. Sibusiso is developing an Afrocentric Critical Racial-ethnic framework for trade books, which should be a useful tool in improving reading for understanding in contexts of low-comprehension skill levels among tweens, such as in South Africa where Grade 4 and 5 students have been performing badly in performance metrics like PIRLS, TIMSS, and SACMEQ. 

Her limited access to culturally relevant books (or any books at all) as she was growing up between rural and peri-urban Plumtree made her alive to the need to improve the availability of and access to such books. She seeks to combine her love for literature with the knowledge she has gained in publishing to realize this dream.

Sibusiso gives back to her community by collecting and distributing pre-loved books for children in rural Plumtree, runs a community library manned by her parents, and offers writing workshops on a voluntary basis to young women in academia. She has over 8 years’ experience in editing magazines, adult, and children’s books. She is currently working at the University of Pretoria as an Assistant Lecturer.