DPhil in Engineering Science (Oxford)

Dr Malebogo Ngoepe is a lecturer in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Cape Town. Her area of expertise is in biomechanics and she has particular interest in the interface between biomechanics and biochemistry. She loves the work of the Hair and Skin Research Lab because it uses the strength of its diverse, multidisciplinary team to solve everyday problems that affect society. Her focus in this particular context is to develop an improved understanding of the mechanical behaviour of hair under physiological and pathological conditions. There is sufficient evidence that the biochemical character of hair has a large influence on mechanical response. She is interested in using various techniques to better understand this interplay. She co-supervises student projects (since 2016) and is already making novel discoveries on mechanophysical properties of afro-textured hair, the least researched human hair phenotype. She ultimately aims to contribute to the fundamental effort of the HSR team to develop a non-racial, objective system for describing human hair variation that can be the basis for the valid use of hair as a testing substrate in medicine. 

• DPhil in Engineering Science, Fluidics and Biocomplexity Group, Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford, United Kingdom Thesis: ‘Computational modelling of thrombotic processes and complex haemodynamics in cerebral aneurysms