UCT Post-graduate studies - Flipbook - Page 51
These profiles have been adapted from the individual profiles on 200ysa.mg.co.za/2017
a suggestion by his teacher at Spes
Bona High School. His interest in
research grew after completing his
internship, and later led to his doctoral
study, which aimed to develop and
test a model examining the role of
parenting styles in adolescent health
decision-making in a rural community
in the Western Cape.
His current research is aimed
at developing and validating an
instrument to measure adolescent
health decision-making in South
Africa. “There is a gap in our
understanding of what drives health
decision-making among adolescents,”
he explains.
3
LETHABO MOTSWALEDI
Chief executive, 3D Power
DR MATTHEW AMONI
PhD candidate
Matthew Amoni aims to carry out essential research
that contributes to his dream of an African textbook
of medicine. “The UK has the Oxford Textbook of
Medicine, but Africa does not yet have an equivalent.
“My childhood exposed me to the needs in rural
communities and created in me an ethos of working
to contribute to society.”
The exceptionally hardworking medical student
undertook MBChB studies concurrently with
BSc (Med) honours and MSc studies at UCT and
successfully completed them on schedule. He was
one of the first medical students to enroll into the
MBChB/ BSc honours intercalated programme,
a course offered by UCT that promotes future
medically-qualified scientists. Amoni was
awarded distinctions for both degrees, and
is now working on his PhD in Belgium.
discipline that deals with spatial
information, at UCT. She went on
to complete her MA in engineering,
where she discovered a strong desire
to start something of her own, which
is when 3D Power was born.
“My engineering degree gave me
a broad scope of what was possible
and the confidence to venture into
new technical territory. And through
starting my business I’ve had the
opportunity to learn how to apply
all these skills.”
5
‘When we speak of 3D printing,
we refer to a process that turns a
blueprint into a real product, an actual
three-dimensional object,” says the
future-minded Lethabo Motswaledi
on the 3D-printing company she coestablished in 2014.
Motswaledi studied geomatics
engineering, an applied science in
the rapidly developing engineering
ANDREW EINHORN
Managing director, Numeric
Andrew came back to South Africa
in 2007 to pursue a master’s degree
in immunology at the Institute of
Infectious Disease and Molecular
Medicine at UCT after having studied
physics and mathematics at Harvard
4
University. During his studies he had an
idea of how to improve the learning of
maths with children from Khayelitsha.
His idea was born out of the challenges
that South Africa faces in providing
access to quality education for children,
particularly for children from poor
backgrounds.
The idea he developed is called
Numeric: an intensive after-school maths
programme for children in their final year
of primary school. Numeric is currently
being implemented in 47 primary schools.