Witsies around the world

HEATHER DUGMORE FOLLOWS FIVE ALUMNI ON THEIR DIVERSE CAREER JOURNEYS...

KERRY CAWSE- NICHOLSON

Image processing scientist

Location: LOS ANGELES

BSc 2007, BSc Hons 2008, MSc 2009, PhD 2012

“I found myself at the centre of the universe,” says Kerry Cawse-Nicholson, speaking of taking up her post at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Los Angeles two years ago.

Among her other roles, she works as the deputy science lead for a mission called ECOSTRESS. It measures the temperature of Earth from outer space in order to better understand how plants respond to heat and water stress. ECOSTRESS (ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station) is managed and operated out of JPL’s sprawling campus at the foothills of the San Gabriel mountains, north of Los Angeles.

“JPL, managed by the California Institute of Technology, is one of the robotic NASA facilities for space and earth science. I was blown away on my first visit to the mission control room, where the deep space network operates and receives data from every manmade object out of the Earth’s orbit, including the Mars rovers. It is referred to as the ‘centre of the universe’,” says Kerry.

This is the outer space world she inhabits during her work day, before returning home to Earth and the condo in Pasadena where she lives with her husband, Terence, and five-year-old daughter, Maia. She says their life took an entirely unforeseen turn when she saw an advertisement for the position at JPL. “We were living in Johannesburg at the time and I thought my chances of being considered for the position were slim, but I submitted my CV anyway. And then I got it!”

Kerry and Terence are both from Johannesburg and started dating when they were 16. After matric Terence did a BCom Hons in finance at the University of Johannesburg while Kerry did a BSc in computational and applied mathematics at Wits. “I went on to do my postgraduate studies at Wits and after I completed my PhD we moved to New York State, where I did my postdoc at the Center for Imaging Science at Rochester Institute of Technology,” she explains. “Maia was born there and after my postdoc we moved back to South Africa to be with family.”

Two years later, Kerry’s career shot into outer space. “At JPL one of my most incredible experiences has been watching ECOSTRESS launch into space atop a Falcon-9 rocket out of Cape Canaveral in June 2018.”

One of the core products the ECOSTRESS team will produce is the Evaporative Stress Index, a leading drought indicator that will be able to measure plant stress and temperature all the way down to an individual farmer’s field, providing critical data from which decision-makers at all levels can take action.

“I am also working on upcoming satellite missions. I love the constant challenge and the opportunity to work with and learn from some of the best scientists and engineers in the world, all from different backgrounds and with differing and complementary areas of expertise.”

She adds that she is “constantly terrified about living up to the standard of excellence that is carried out at the lab”, but that it challenges her to push herself further every day. “I am so lucky to have a husband who is currently putting his career on hold to support mine and to look after our daughter.”

Kerry makes a point of taking time out to enjoy her family and to explore Los Angeles and beyond with them. “Los Angeles is a melting pot of different cultures, and we are very happy here, with friends from all over the world and access to a wide range of incredible museums, such as the California Science Center, which hosts a space shuttle exhibit featuring Endeavour, which is my daughter's favourite! We live in a wonderful neighbourhood with a choice of small restaurants serving organic or sustainably sourced food, which is popular here. My favourite place to spend the day is at the nearby Huntington Library with its beautiful botanical gardens, including many South African plants.

“It is also easy to travel from here to the ocean, desert, and mountains. My family visited recently, and we went on an awe-inspiring road trip through California and three surrounding states, including stops at Joshua Tree National Park, Sedona and the Grand Canyon. I’ve seen images of the Grand Canyon so many times from space but being up close was an incredible experience.”

Kerry says her ultimate goal is “to continue to contribute to NASA earth science missions, to give us the opportunity to understand the dynamics of our earth from a truly global perspective. I have Wits to thank for this as it gave me the background, independence and skills I need to continue to learn and acquire new abilities every day.”

TEHILLAH CHIMFWEMBE

Telecoms licensing officer and global shaper

Location: ZAMBIA

BCom Law 2014, BEconSci Hons 2015

“Online violence, defamation of character, impersonation, fake news, alternative facts and cyber bullying are serious offences and threats to individuals on the receiving end and to the public at large,” Tehillah Chimfwembe explains on national Zambian TV, ZNBC.

Her broadcasts about the responsible use of social media, what to do about cyber bullying, universal ICT access and innovation, mobile application privacy and other ICT-related issues have gained her recognition in the Zambian multimedia journalism fraternity and on TV as the face of the Zambia Information & Communications Technology Authority (ZICTA), where she works as a licensing officer.

“ZICTA is Zambia’s equivalent of the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA),” she explains from ZICTA’s office in the suburb of Longacres, Lusaka. “I use my law background to advise on the types of telecommunications licences that are offered in our jurisdiction for all forms of ICT – from mobile network operators to internet service providers – and what operators may or may not do.”

After graduating with her honours degree from Wits, Tehillah says, she felt a duty to return home to Zambia and contribute there. “A well-managed ICT sector can play a huge role in uplifting our economy. It’s driving the future and it puts the world at our fingertips. In Zambia there is so much scope for ICT and related businesses to grow.”

Home for Tehillah is on the outskirts of Lusaka in a farming area called Makeni. “I’m the least outdoorsy person but I live on our family farm with my Mom and Dad.” Her father, Emmanuel, is an aeronautical engineer and her mother, Jacqueline, is a lawyer, and they also keep cows and chickens. “The nice thing about Zambia is that most people have a side hustle,” she says.

One of ten siblings, she is the only one living at home at the moment. One of her brothers, Asher, is studying aeronautical engineering at Wits.

She describes herself as a “homebody” but when she goes out, one of her favourite places is a restaurant and nursery close to her home called Mint Café at Sandy’s Creations: “I’m a smoothie lover and they make the best smoothies and prawn pasta.”

Living in Lusaka, she says, is “busy, but not Joburg-busy. People are a bit more laid back here, and our industries are not as aggressive, but there are a lot of entrepreneurs. Because of the lack of jobs, everyone is trying to do something on their own. As a friend of mine in the fashion industry here says, the beauty of being here is that you can be the first. Whether you’re the first wedding planner or one of the first Zambian YouTubers or international television presenters, there is a lot of scope.”

Asked where she learnt to be a TV presenter, she says it started at Wits, where she volunteered for a small Christian TV station. “I’m interested in broadcast journalism and I love travelling, so in October 2018 I combined both when I enrolled for a one-month course in broadcast journalism at the New York Film Academy.” During her stay Tehillah visited the 9/11 memorial and says it had a profound impact on her. “I met people who were there, who had lost someone or been covered by the smog that descended on the city.”

She says she learnt a lot at the film academy. “Even if you don’t have the equipment, you can use your smartphone. It’s all about starting with what you have and life will meet you there,” says Tehillah, whose life is taking her all over the world. Just before going to New York she was in Geneva at the World Economic Forum headquarters, representing Zambia at the Global Shapers Annual Summit.

An initiative of the World Economic Forum, Global Shapers is a network of people under the age of 30, working together to address local, regional and global challenges. With more than 7 000 members, the Global Shapers Community includes 369 citybased hubs in 171 countries. In each city, teams of Shapers self-organise to create projects that address the needs of their community.

She says the highlight of the summit was when she moderated the flagship session with the Director General of the United Nations Office in Geneva, Michael Møller.

In Lusaka, Tehillah is involved in a range of community projects, one of which is Menstruation Matters. “The price of pads is very high in Zambia, so we distribute them for free to girls who cannot afford them and our hub members in the medical field talk to the girls about menstruation and the importance of a good education.

“In my home language, Bemba, there is a saying, Upamfiwe, ewulwa ne chibi, which loosely translated means ‘the person with a need is the one who should do the running around’. In other words, you need to be proactive to get what you need and to go after your dreams. And that’s what I did at Wits. I am so thankful to Wits for the education and for the Postgraduate Merit Award I received. I stayed in Wits Junction during my honours year; I loved it, I made treasured friends there, including South Africans, Zambians and Malawians, and I loved having my own space, with a beautiful view overlooking Johannesburg.”

RICHARD STUPART

Journalist

Location: LONDON & SOUTH SUDAN

BSc 2004 (Computer Science), BSc Hons 2005

“The first time I travelled was across South Africa for the Wits Debating Union in the early 2000s. We visited schools as a result of the NGO LoveLife sponsoring debating (and, indirectly, us),” says Richard Stupart, photographer and PhD researcher in the Media and Communications Department at the London School of Economics.

For his PhD he is researching the discourse and practice of “bearing witness” by journalists in geopolitical conflicts, notably in South Sudan. His interest in the idea was ignited at Wits and through the Debating Union. “It was the first environment I encountered where it was possible to really start to reflect on the world I lived in and develop relationships with people I would never have met otherwise.”

On the debating trips around South Africa, he says, he saw “how apartheid spatial planning had been written into every tiny town and large city. This led to long conversations with the other debaters from all walks of life, which were easily as educational as anything I was learning in my formal classes.”

After his Honours, Richard ran a small company in software development and hosting for a few years. “The money was good but at some point I had an existential crisis about what I was doing with my life. I was finding the whole being-a-coder enterprise fairly meaningless, morally and politically speaking. So I packed up and went backpacking from Cape Town to Cairo on public transport for three months.”

This influenced his decision to pursue his Master’s in Media Studies at Rhodes University in 2012, followed by a second Master’s in Public Policy and Conflict at Universität Erfurt, Germany, in 2015. “I realised that I was interested in the broader questions about how journalism is done. So I researched media coverage of the 2011 famine in Somalia, but also travelled independently to northern Uganda and later to the Ituri district of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Both experiences made me think much more about the sociological universe in which peacekeepers, journalists and humanitarians do their work.”

In 2012 he moved to London with his partner, Katherine Furman (whom he met at a debating competition), when she started her PhD in Philosophy at the London School of Economics. “Katherine is currently a lecturer at the University College Cork, and I’m at the LSE. So we have had to become good at making weekend travel plans,” he says. “One of the major headaches of being in a relationship where both of us are academics is to find work in the same city. Among academics this situation is so prevalent that it’s been given its own name – the two-body problem. In time, it’d be nice to actually live in the same place again.”

For his fieldwork he travelled to South Sudan in the early part of 2018, where he stayed in the capital, Juba, and a site in Malakal where UN peacekeepers are effectively being asked to keep 20000 civilians safe from the government. On this visit he directly encountered state repression of the media.

In his research he is questioning what justifies witnessing the suffering of others, what obligations we have to speak about injustices we are aware of, and the ethics and purpose of journalism. “For all of the crises about fake news and the role of journalists in the world, there is a point to be made about how certain forms of journalism are fundamentally an ethical form of work through which society comes to know itself, know what is unjust, and thereby have the opportunity to improve. These tricky questions of ethics, suffering and representation fascinate me.”

One of his interactive digital projects is an African Conflict Map, showing over 94000 instances of conflict events across Africa in the past 14 years and allowing users to browse conflict event data.

For light relief Richard has taken to baking, in particular Guinness chocolate cakes. “Maybe it’s a diversion from thesis writing or from living and studying in the UK at this very strange moment in the political history of the country,” he says. “Watching the practical implosion of reasoned democracy and the emergence of a strange form of nostalgia for the days of empire is unsettling for someone who grew up in South Africa and has since spent much of his life reading about what colonial domination actually looked like.”

He adds that there is an uneasiness in the UK now, “in the sense of not really having a clue what the UK might look like in two months’ time, let alone in two years’ time. In a world of Trumpian, Brexit shocks, it’s also a strange feeling to be questioning the notion that the arc of history bends to justice, to paraphrase King’s famous quote. Having grown up through the fall of the Berlin wall, the end of apartheid, and the progressive realisation of sexual rights in many countries, it’s a reminder, I suppose, that nothing is inevitable. Except perhaps that the sun will rise.

“Every winter up north, I miss the sun. Blue skies, and Johannesburg’s very specific, wrath-of-god thunderstorms in the evenings are things I’ve come to miss a lot. I have very fond memories of falling asleep on the wooden benches outside the Cullen Library on lazy afternoons. Then reluctantly awakening from this warm reverie to get to classes in what was then Senate House.”

IVOR & HELOISE CLIFFORD

Nuclear engineer and pianist

Location: SWITZERLAND

Ivor BSc Eng (Mech) 2001; Heloise (Murdoch) BMus 2001, MMus 2007

Witsies watching an episode of House Hunters International a few years back may have seen two familiar faces on the show, looking for a home in Switzerland. They were Ivor and Heloise Clifford.

“Being on House Hunters International was a fun experience and it’s been so interesting to hear how many friends around the world have seen the show and were able to see the apartment we found through it and now live in. It’s in the village of Würenlingen, 40km from Zurich in northern Switzerland,” Ivor explains. “We moved here in 2013 when I took up a post as a scientist and later as a group leader in the field of nuclear systems and safety analysis at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) in Villigen, the village neighbouring Würenlingen.”

PSI is Switzerland’s largest research institute for natural and engineering sciences, conducting research into matter and material, energy and the environment and human health.

Before moving to Switzerland they lived in the United States for four years, where Ivor did his PhD in Nuclear Engineering at Penn State University, followed by an internship at the Idaho National Lab as a Graduate Nuclear Engineering Fellow.

During this time, pianist Heloise did a Professional Performer's Certificate at Penn State University and played in the Penn State Orchestra, a highlight being when they performed in New York at Carnegie Hall.

The two met at the Wits Yacht Club. Heloise says: “When we first joined, we were both vaguely interested in sailing and very interested in parties, but in the end we were both long-term members of the club.”

After graduating from Wits, Ivor worked for the Nuclear Energy Corporation of South Africa, which had provided a bursary for his studies. After that he worked for the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor Company, designing a nuclear reactor. “Nuclear energy and its role often sparks controversy but it remains one of the few viable options for long-term base load energy production when we remove fossil fuels from the energy mix,” says Ivor. “For a researcher, the modelling and analysis of the complex physical processes taking place in nuclear reactors is fascinating and challenging.”

After Heloise graduated from Wits, she doubled as a piano teacher at the Ridge School and a freelance classical pianist performing as a soloist and accompanist in many venues around Johannesburg.

“These days my piano playing is confined to our living room!” she smiles. “I work in Zurich and the surrounding areas as a teacher of English, music and piano. It's a challenge to teach piano in German, but something I'm proud to be able to do after many years of German language study. I love teaching and at the same time I am happy to have a good balance between working and having time at home enjoying Würenlingen with our young boys.

Würenlingen, she explains, “is a small village of 4000 people, which is different from growing up in Joburg. The shops are all closed on Sundays.”

They found it hard to integrate into Swiss life at first, primarily because of the huge language challenge. They also needed to adapt to the lifestyle and the housing situation, which is vastly different from South Africa. Land is at a premium and they don’t have a back yard or workshop where Ivor can fix up old Minis or dream up designs for his ideal Formula 1 car, as he used to do in his family’s home in Johannesburg.

As the top student in his mechanical engineering class at Wits, Ivor took part in the Formula Student Design Competition, travelling to the UK twice to compete. Over 100 student teams from universities throughout the world compete in racing cars they design, build and race.

“Fortunately, after five years in Switzerland we are well settled and we have a wonderful life in a beautiful country,” says Heloise. “We have forests, mountains, glacial lakes, medieval cities, culture, concerts, galleries, amazing cheese and chocolate. We spend a lot of time skiing and hiking in the mountains. We now swim in lakes rather than swimming pools, and we raft on the rivers.”

The Cliffords love being in the centre of Europe “so we can travel to Paris instead of Parys for the weekend”, Heloise quips. “We travel a lot, spending weekends in Italy, France, Spain, Germany... We also love exploring Switzerland, which is amazing. We didn't own a car for the first four years here; we travelled everywhere by train and the Swiss public transport system is phenomenal.”

They have a large group of international friends and have done their best to convert them into “braai fundis”. “We miss having braais, we miss biltong and Ouma rusks and we miss our family and friends, but we are happy here,” says Heloise. “We are adding new memories to our older ones. We think back with nostalgia to our time at Wits and our lofty plans about our lives and futures. We had no responsibilities and lots of energy, and, of course, we were young and in love.”

MICHAEL JENNIONS

Biologist

Location: AUSTRALIA

BSc 1990, BSc Hons 1992, MSc 1993

Michael Jennions is a professor at the Research School of Biology and leader of the Jennions Group in Behavioural and Reproductive Ecology at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra. His story of world research and travel begins with a frog condom he designed during his Master’s at Wits.

He explains the condom was used on male foamnest frogs during research in Mkhuze Game Reserve in northern KwaZulu-Natal. “I look back in wonder that we were working at night in an area full of rhino, armed only with torches and enthusiasm.”

The male foam-nest frogs appeared to be cooperating in the frenzied building of the foam nests, whereas evolutionary theory suggests that unrelated males generally don’t cooperate; they compete to get access to the female. Michael wanted to find out if the foam-nest frog was a rare, sexually cooperative male. So he fashioned a condom from a plastic sandwich bag and slipped it between the female and the male jockeying her. Yet the eggs still got fertilised. “What we discovered is that every time the female releases eggs she churns her legs to whip up the foam. At this exact moment, all the males in the vicinity swivel their bodies to move their groins closer to the female’s cloaca. Their foam-whipping simply creates the illusion that they are helping.”

Since then, Michael’s research and presentations on the reproduction and sexual selection behaviour of frogs, crabs, fish, insects and mammals have taken him all over the world, including Mozambique, Tanzania, Japan, Australia, Panama, the UK, Spain, New Zealand and China.

He and Pat Backwell (BSc 1983, BSc Hons 1984, PhD 1991) married in 1996. She, too, is a professor at ANU, and leader of the Backwell Group in the Behavioural Ecology of Fiddler Crabs. In the first year of their marriage fiddlers and cichlids took them to the Smithsonian Tropical Research Station in the forests of Panama until 2001. Michael elaborates: “We lived in a small settlement called Gamboa, halfway between the Pacific and Caribbean, with a rainforest on our back doorstep, full of wildlife – sloths, toucans, tamarin monkeys, howler monkeys, opossums, capybaras … it was amazing.” They lived on a tight budget, eating a basic local diet, mainly beans, rice and plantains, and occupying a “weird old colonial-style plantation house on stilts with a massive hole in the floor in the bathroom. You had to remember it was there or you risked falling through it in the middle of the night.”

Okinawa in Japan was next. “We were in the far north in a village called Motobu. Okinawa is famous for its sweet pork, made into a broth with noodles. The people live to be very old here; many are over 100. Possibly it’s the sweet pork or their ice cream made of red beans, which is really good.”

In 2001 they moved to Canberra. The trusty fiddlers have afforded them several outings from there, including trips to Mozambique and Zanzibar. They also spent a year in Berlin, where Michael got a fellowship to the Institute for Advanced Study at Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin. “While there, I decided to do a crazy project: to walk all the streets in Berlin inside the Ringbahn – the 37.5km long railway line around the city – and to map my walk. It took me about nine months and I covered 2000km. I would colour in the section I had walked each day on the map with a pink fluorescent pen. It appealed to me as quite a systematic person, and it was like a bit of performance art.”

Michael describes Canberra as “an easy place to live in. It’s peaceful and pristine, with embassies and film festivals. Because most of the people are middle class it doesn’t have the vibrancy of Berlin or Johannesburg. If everyday living is consistently easy you lose track of time and the years pass.” Michael and Pat enjoy the odd sortie to the local Polish club, The White Eagle. “They do delicious Polish dumplings or pierogi, and the décor is all orange and brown and 70s or vaguely East European and comfortably tasteless. I like this because so much of Australia is so super cool and hipster.”

Come vacation time, they head for South Africa or Europe. “I miss the wildlife, natural beauty and the people and diversity of South Africa. I am pleased to see that my South African colleagues are also doing well. Would I come back? Of course, but that’s just nostalgia talking, it’s not on the cards.” Unless, of course, the local fiddlers irresistibly wave and call!