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Close on 30 of the exceptional young people featured on the 2017 Mail & Guardian 200 Young South Africans list are UCT students, alumni and staff members.

The list features notable South Africans under the age of 35 who have made a mark for themselves in categories ranging from business and entrepreneurship to the environment, arts and entertainment.

The following UCT Faculty of Health Sciences students, alumni and staff feature on the 2017 list:

PhD candidate Lerato Hlaka, from the Department of Pathology’s Division of Immunology, embarked on her UCT studies with support from the National Research Foundation and the South African Medical Research Council. She is also affiliated with South African Women in Science and the Golden Key International Honour Society.

 

 

Lecturer in Integrative Biomedical Science Dr Hlumani Ndlovu does research on diseases that impact South Africans and Africans as a way to solve some of society’s most pressing problems. He completed his PhD in immunology at UCT, completed the UCT Emerging Student Leaders Programme, and was also one of the 100 Brightest Young Minds in 2013.

 

 

Dr Kavita Lakha is a forensic anthropologist who recently completed a PhD in human biology at UCT. She works at the Missing Persons Task Team in the National Prosecuting Authority, where she conducts forensic investigations in search of activists who disappeared in political circumstances between 1960 and 1994.

 

 

Dr Sudesh Sivarasu, the founder of the UCT Medical Devices Lab, is a senior lecturer in biomedical engineering in the Faculty of Health Sciences. He has a PhD in biomedical engineering and won the TW Kambule–NSTF Award for an emerging researcher in 2016, among other awards.

 

 

 

Marvin Jansen is a health science education lecturer at UCT. As a paramedic student, he was uncomfortable with practicing on “real-life” patients and so decided to focus his research on medical simulation. His master’s in emergency medicine is now being followed by a PhD in health science education.

 

 

Dr Eugene Lee Davids, from the Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health, is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Adolescent Health Research Unit (AHRU) in the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. He holds a master’s and a doctoral degree in child and family studies from the University of the Western Cape. His research interest is in parenting style, particularly the impact of parenting style on young people’s decision-making about health.

 

 

PhD candidate Dr Matthew Amoni was one of the first medical students at UCT to enrol into the MBChB/BSc honours intercalated programme where he completed his MBChB studies concurrently with BSc(Med)(Hons) and MSc studies. Amoni was awarded distinctions for both degrees. He is currently working on his PhD in Belgium and dreams of creating an African textbook of medicine.

 

 

Kentse Mpolokeng is the first black female lecturer in the Department of Human Biology in the Faculty of Health Sciences at UCT. Mpolokeng took up the New Generation of Academics Programme (nGAP) lectureship at UCT at the beginning of 2016, and is on the fast track to becoming one of South Africa’s leading academics. She will be graduating cum laude for her master’s in medical science in July.