Two years ago, my PhD advisor asked me to mentor one of her 3rd year students. This is one of my responsibilities as an Ocean Womxn fellow. I had a Zoom session with the student and in that first meeting, she became so emotional from being reminded that she is brilliant, that she is not…

The year is 2019 and big things are happening! For me, this is the year of grabbing opportunities by the neck and using them to my advantage. It is a year of further growth! I’m a believer in fortune cookie messages and one fortune cookie completely re-enforced my thinking and how I approach life. The…

Science communication has bitten me like a bug and I love the effects! Through science communication, we as scientists get the precious opportunity to tell our science-related stories to the public. This sharing of scientific research and discoveries with non- experts in our different fields of expertise can be in the form of science exhibitions,…

The Ph.D. tempo has considerably increased as I reach the second year of study and panic mode is an element in the equation. My Ph.D. focuses on understanding nitrogen (mainly nitrate and ammonium) uptake in the surface waters of the Indian Ocean (nutrient poor) and Subantarctic Ocean (nutrient rich as nutrients are not fully consumed by the marine…

It’s a new year, a chance to improve, conquer and be fierce. The new year brings opportunity, a chance to correct our mistakes and of course work towards finishing what we started. I’m one of the most prominent believers in women. Women are powerhouses, we sometimes forget just how valuable and influential we are in society….

The first South African Antarctic Circumnavigation Expedition (ACE Project XII) workshop took place at the University of Cape Town in November 2017. The University of Cape Town, Rhodes University, Nelson Mandela University and Cape Peninsula University are part of ACE Project XII. At the workshop, students and supervisors gave talks on their areas of research…

Referred to as the “Pop Idols of Science”, the British Council’s FameLab is one of the biggest science communication competitions in the world! I had been seeing this competition on social media for a few months since last year (2016). At first, I had very little information about what it was, but I knew it had…

My Ph.D. research is part of broader research by the Swiss Polar Institute’s Antarctic Circumnavigation Expedition (ACE). ACE is made up of 22 different projects bringing together research teams from six continents. The projects focus on different areas of study with the aim to understand and answer questions about the Antarctic ecosystem. My work is a…

On this day in 1976, black learners in #SouthAfrica protested against #BantuEducation and the then enforced Afrikaans (medium of instruction) in our schools. The apartheid government responded with violence and brutality. Hundreds of school kids were murdered, hundreds more injured, some are paralysed today! Those student’s actions changed the sociopolitical landscape in this country. Their…

With me and a number of other researchers from various South African universities onboard, the second generation icebreaker, SA Agulhas II set sail on a research expedition to Marion Island. Marion Island is one of the two Prince Edward Islands, Prince Edward Island being the other. These are South African volcanic islands situated south of…

Ph.D. was never really part of my plans until 2011 when I conducted my very first independent scientific project as an Honours student in the Botany Department at Walter Sisulu University in Mthatha, Eastern Cape, South Africa. The project was biotechnology-based, with the aim of producing bioethanol from lignocellulosic biomass. After completing that degree I felt the urge…