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CHARLES VAN ONSELEN
Professor van Onselen's most recent book, published in Cape Town, in 2017 by Jonathan Ball and by the University of Virginia Press,
in the United States, is The Cowboy Capitalist; John Hays Hammond, the American West & the Jameson Raid. It offers a radical, new, interpretation of a key event in southern African history by underscoring the importance of an American, imperialist, thrust into the region at a crucial moment in its development. In August, 2107, the author was awarded the HSRC's Gold Medal for a distinguished contribution to Social Sciences and Humanities in South Africa. He is currently researching the unusual historical relationship that developed between colonial Mozambique and South African during the first half of the 20th century and hopes to publish his findings via the medium of a set of inter-connected essays.
Professor Van Onselen is Research Professor in the Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship at UP.
JOHANNES VAN OORT
Professor Van Oort’s areas of research are the rise of Christianity in its Hebrew/Aramaic, Greek, Latin and Coptic contexts; the history of the Early Church, with particular attention to Gnostic-Christian movements; and the theology, sources and influences of the African church father Augustine of Hippo (354-430). In the past few years, the focus of his research has been on Gnostic-Christian influences on a number of Augustine’s theological and philosophical doctrines. Presently he is preparing a new commentary on the Confessions as well as new editions of Augustine’s anti-Manichaean writings in the UNESCO supported series Corpus Fontium Manichaeorum of which he is an editor- in-chief. The first volume of his Collected Essays will appear in 2019.
Professor Van Oort is Extraordinary Professor in the Department of Church History in the Faculty of Theology at UP.
BRENDA WINGFIELD
Professor Wingfield’s research focus is on speciation and evolution of fungi, predominantly non-model Ascomycetes. This includes research on genetic variation within as well as between species. Her research group enjoys substantial international recognition with respect to research on the molecular systematics and population genetics and genomics of fungal pathogens, and is considered as one of the leading teams worldwide involved in the development of molecular diagnostic techniques for the identification and classification of pathogenic fungi. Professor Wingfield also has an interest in basic evolutionary biology based on ribosomal RNA-genes, which extends beyond fungi, and has a variety of collaborations with research groups working on a range of organisms. In 2017, Professor Wingfield received the American Phytopathological Society Fellow Award, and was awarded Honorary Member of the Mycological Society of America, the highest honour for an international mycologist.
Professor Wingfield holds the SARChI Chair in Fungal Genomics in the Department of Genetics. She is a member of the DST-NRF Centre for Excellence in Tree Health Biotechnology and the Tree Protection Cooperative Programme in FABI.
MICHAEL J WINGFIELD
Professor Wingfield’s research focuses on fungal diseases that threaten forests and forestry globally. Using a broad range of approaches (especially molecular genetic techniques), pests and pathogens arising in many different countries of the world are identified – often
for the first time. Research efforts seek to understand the drivers of tree pest invasions and to find methods to reduce the damage that they cause. His research programme falls under the umbrella of two major programmes: The Tree Protection Cooperative Programme, a cooperative venture between the University of Pretoria, all forestry companies in South Africa and the DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Tree Health Biotechnology. As President of International Union of Forest Research Organisations, he actively promotes efforts to enhance evidence-based policy formulation on which the future of forests depends. He was awarded honorary doctorates from the University of British Columbia (Canada) in 2012 and North Carolina State University (USA) in 2013. Professor Wingfield received the Distinguished Leadership Award for International Scientists by his alma mater, the University of Minnesota, in 2016 and in 2017 he was awarded the China Friendship Award by the Chinese Government.
Professor Wingfield is the founding Director of the Forestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute (FABI) at UP, a position from which he stepped down in 2018. He is also President of the IUFRO, one the largest and oldest scientific unions representing more than 15 000 forestry scientists globally.
XIAOHUA XIA
Professor Xia heads the South African National Hub for the Postgraduate Programme in Energy Efficiency and Demand-side Management, hosted by the Centre of New Energy Systems in the Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology. His research interests are control systems and automation, and more recently, the modelling and optimisation of energy systems. This includes non- linear feedback control, observer design, time-delay systems, hybrid systems, modelling and control of HIV/Aids, control and handling of heavy-haul trains and energy modelling and optimisation.
Professor Xia is Director of the Centre of New Energy Systems (CNES) and holds the Exxaro Chair in Energy Efficiency.