Unisa master's students win prestigious WISA award

Congratulations to students Sikelelwa Ndaweni and Sonia Kiangala who won the South African Woman in Science Awards (WISA) Tata Africa Scholarships for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology for master’s students for 2018.

The theme for the 2018 WISA Awards is leveraging science, technology and innovation to enhance inclusive growth and development.

Ndaweni, a master’s student in the Nanotechnology and Water Sustainability (NanoWS) Research Unit, and Kiangala, a master’s student in the Department of Electrical and Mining Engineering, received the prestigious award at a ceremony hosted and sponsored by the Minister of Science and Technology, Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane, in Polokwane last night. The scholarship is worth R75 000 and recognizes and awards the recipients’ research excellence and capability as outstanding young South African women in research.

“The awards underpin the College of Science, Engineering and Technology’s (CSET’s) deliberate intention of promoting and supporting women’s research scholarship in science and engineering. Ms Ndaweni also carried out part of her research at Ghent University in Belgium,  one of CSET’s main collaborating institutions. We congratulate her for obtaining such recognition,” said Prof Bhekie Mamba, Executive Dean of CSET. Ndaweni is studying under supervision of Dr Thabo Nkambule, Senior Lecturer in the NanoWS Research Unit.

Kiangala’s supervisor is Prof Zenghui Wang. The proud supervisor said “Sonia is a very hard-working and intelligent woman researcher with one high quality publication and two manuscripts. An important quality that helped her to achieve these outstanding works in a record time is her very strong self-discipline through which she could always meet her personal targets, deadlines and very often complete them before time.”