RESEARCHERS FEATURED

Daisy Selematsela

Dr Daisy Selematsela is the Director of Wits Libraries. She holds a PhD in Information Science and is the Vice-President (20232027) of the International Science Council. Selematsela chairs the South African National Committee of CODATA (the International Science Council’s Committee on Data), as well as the Committee for Higher Education Librarians of South Africa. In 2016 and again in 2019, Selematsela was given a Knowledge Management Leadership award by the Global Knowledge Management Congress and Awards, in association with the World Education Congress.

Dinesh Balliah

Dr Dinesh Balliah is the Director of the Centre for Journalism at Wits University. She holds a PhD in Journalism and Media Studies, and her research continues to focus on journalism practice, ethics, and mental health. Her Master’s in Historical Studies, on the history of the internet in South Africa, was published. Balliah previously led the career-entry journalism programme at Wits and edited the Wits Vuvuzela student newspaper. She has over two decades of teaching, training, and research experience, augmented with several roles in industry.

Hlengiwe Ndlovu

Dr Hlengiwe Ndlovu is a Senior Lecturer of Development and Governance in the Wits School of Governance. She holds a PhD in Sociology, and her research explores the interplay of gender, democracy, governance, and climate change. She is a co-editor of Rioting and Writing: Diaries of the Wits #Fallists and has written on topics including women’s historical participation in community protests, local government elections, women’s conditions during the Covid-19 pandemic, and how gendered perspectives shape public policies and community initiatives.

Johannes Machinya

Dr Johannes Machinya is a Lecturer in Health Sociology at Wits University

His PhD thesis was titled The life and labour of ‘illegal’ and deportable people: undocumented Zimbabwean migrants living and working in Witbank, South Africa. His research interests lie in the interdisciplinary field of critical digital health sociology at the intersection of science and technology studies and health sociology. His research experience includes publishing on migration and labour studies.

Lebogang Ngwatle

Lebogang Ngwatle holds a Bachelor of Arts in Dramatic Arts. She is a Master’s student and a Writing Fellow in the Department of Cultural Policy and Management in the Wits School of the Arts. Ngwatle’s research interests are shaped by the interaction between culture, public policy, and education. Her research explores different ways that culture is valued and analyses what these values could mean in South Africa’s current cultural policy landscape. In her professional role as a Development Specialist, she contributes to fundraising and resource mobilisation.

Naeema Hussein El Kout

Naeema Hussein El Kout is a Lecturer in Physiotherapy and a researcher. She holds an MSc in Physiotherapy and is currently pursuing a PhD in Physiotherapy. Through multiple local and international research collaborations, her research focuses on disability and public health policy in South Africa and beyond. She is an advocate for the integration of rehabilitation into priority health programmes from a global health perspective, to ensure that the voices of end-users reach the policymakers' agenda.

Siphiwe Dube

Dr Siphiwe Dube is a Senior Lecturer and former Head of Department in the Department of Political Studies at Wits. His research interests traverse a range of interdisciplinary topics in African politics and religion, and politics and gender. His recent co-edited volume, The D-Word: Perspectives on democracy in tumultuous times, confronts the limits placed on democracy from a diversity of interdisciplinary perspectives. The chapters in the book provide critical reflections on the fractures in democracy in South Africa and beyond, including his chapter on Black Conservatism and religion in postapartheid South Africa.

Wayne Van Zijl

Associate Professor Wayne van Zijl is a chartered accountant in the Margo Steele School of Accountancy at Wits and the Assistant Dean of Research for the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management. He is a PhD candidate and conducts qualitative, cross-disciplinary, corporate reporting research on International Financial Reporting Standards, accounting’s evolution, accountability, and the co-evolution of society and accounting. He has published in Accounting Forum, Australian Accounting Review, British Accounting Review, and Critical Perspectives on Accounting.