Committee Member, Speaker and Staff Biographies
and Staff Biographies
COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Sagadevan Mundree
■ , MASSAf, (Chair) is the Chief Executive Offi cer of PlantBio Trust. He is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of Cape Town (UCT).
Sagadevan returned to South Africa in 1997 and took up a Post-Doctoral position in the Botany Department at UCT, and in 1998; he was offered a lectureship in the same department. In 1999, he moved to the Microbiology Department where he developed his research further. His research focuses on the molecular dissection of abiotic stress tolerance in plants using the monocotyledonous resurrection plant Xerophyta viscosa as a model system.
He received the Distinguished Teacher Award at UCT recently. Sagadevan has been inspired by the role of entrepreneurship and innovation in the biological sciences and has an unwavering commitment to develop the Plant Biotechnology sector in South Africa. During his PhD studies, he received a number of accolades.
Ann Bernstein,
■ MASSAf, is the founding director of the Centre for Development and Enterprise. She was educated at the University of the Witwatersrand and the University of California, Los Angeles. The fi rst part of Ann’s professional career was spent working for the Urban Foundation.
In 1991 she was a Visiting Fellow at Peter Berger’s Institute for the study of economic culture, Boston University. In 1994 she was appointed to the Development Bank Transformation Team and subsequently to the Transitional Board of the Development Bank of Southern Africa. From 1997 – 2001 she was a member of the Board of the Development Bank. In 2007 she was appointed to the board of the Brenthurst Foundation, which focuses on African development. Acknowledged as one of the country’s leading development experts, she is a strong proponent of the importance of economic growth in promoting democracy and sustainable development.
She has published extensively on business, democracy, development and policy-making in South Africa. In 2005 she was selected as a Reagan-Fascell Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington DC.
Daniel Ncayiyana,
■ MASSAf has been editor of the South African Medical Journal since 1993, and currently serves as Advisor to the President of the Human Sciences Research Council. He received his medical degree from the University of Groningen Medical School in the Netherlands in 1970.
Subsequently and following post-graduate training at Albert Einstein and New York University medical schools, he was Board-certifi ed by the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, was elected Fellow of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, and was in practice in the US 1970-1983. Back in South Africa, he served as chief medical superintendent of Umtata General Hospital, Dean of Health Sciences, and acting vice chancellor, University of Transkei. Subsequently, he was deputy vice-chancellor, UCT 1996-2001; and vice chancellor, Durban Institute of Technology 2001-2005. He was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the Colleges of Medicine of South Africa, and was appointed honorary professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at the Universities of Cape Town and KwaZulu-Natal. He is a longstanding consultant to the World Bank and the WHO.
David Dewar,
■ MASSAf is Professor of Architecture, Planning and Geomatics and Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, University of Cape Town, and founder member of the Urban Problems Research Unit and Director of it from 1980-1991.
From 1993-5 he was Dean of the Faculty of Fine Art and Architecture. In 1998-1999 he was a member of the National Development and Planning Commission, appointed to prepare a Green Paper on the future role of Planning in South Africa, and was Chair of one of the three working groups. From 1992-98 he was a member of the Statutory South African Council of Town and Regional Planners. He was awarded the Ernest Oppenheimer Travel Fellowship twice (in 1979 and 1985), the J.B Harbour Visiting Scholar, Israel and won the Four Outstanding Young South Africans Award in 1983. He has received numerous awards from the South African Institute of Architects, the South African Institute of Town and Regional Planners, and the Journal of South African Architecture, both for his research outputs and professional work. He was elected an Honorary Life Member of the newly formed Urban Design Institute of South Africa in 2005. In 2005 he (with P Louw) were placed in two international competitions of the Union des Architects (UIA), including fi rst prize for a plan for the Centre of Port Louis. Dewar is a Life Fellow of the University of Cape Town
Mamphela Ramphele,
■ MASSAf, is currently Chair of Circle Capital
Ventures, a Black Economic Empowerment company that focuses on unleashing the fortune at the margins of the socio-economic circle. She is a former World Bank Managing Director, responsible for human development activities in the areas of education; health, nutrition, and population; and social protection. Mamphela qualifi ed as a doctor in 1972, and in 1975 she founded a Health Centre in a village outside King William’s Town and was also the manager of the Eastern Cape branch of the Black Community Health Programme. In 1996 she became the vice- chancellor of the University of Cape Town. She played a key role in the Black Consciousness movement in South African and has published a wide range of books and articles on the themes of education, health and social development. She serves on the boards of major corporations and non-governmental organizations, including the Nelson Mandela Children’s Trust, and has received numerous national and international awards, including three honorary doctorates.
Priscilla Reddy,
■ MASSAf, is presently Director of the health promotion research and development group at the Medical Research Council in Cape Town, South Africa. She is currently advising the Chief Directorate of Health Systems, Directorate Health Promotion and Department of National Health. Since 1992 she worked as a scientist at the Medical Research Council, fi rst as a researcher in the National AIDS Programme, and then as a senior scientist in the Health Promotion Research & Development Offi ce.
She studied Nursing at the University of Cape Town and Public Health at the University of Massachusetts. She was a member of the Communication Working Group of the National AIDS Committee of South Africa. Some of her many contributions has been to create a science out of the study of behaviour and health promotion and garnering methods from a range of disciplines which has led to a zealous approach to changing lifestyle trough public intervention.
Renfrew Christie
■ , MASSAf is Dean of Research at the University of the Western Cape, where he has also been Community Law Centre since 1995 to date. Previously, in 1971 and 1972, he was Deputy President of the NUSAS, prior to that he was tutor and then junior lecturer at the University of Cape Town. Between 1986 and 1987, he was an Economics Research Fellow at SAIRR and then became an Academic Planning Offi cer at the University of Cape Town during the period of 1987 till 1990. Some of Renfrew`s achievements and awards includes, Hon Life Member of the National Union of South African students (NUSAS) 1972; Field marshal Smuts Scholar, St Antony`s College, Oxford, 1975-1979; Fellow and General Secretary of the Royal Society of South Africa, 2004 and Chief of
APPENDICES
the South African navy`s Certifi cate of Commendation, 2005. During the period of 1989-1993, he was Chairperson of South newspaper. He has been a visiting fellow at Michigan State University in 2006; Woodrow Wilson Internat Centre Scholars, Wash DC in 1994; Stiftung fur Wissenschaff und Politik Ebenhausenin 1994 and the Indian Ocean Peace Centre Perth WA in 1992.
Solomon Benatar
■ , MASSAf is Professor of Medicine and Founding Director of the University of Cape Town’s (UCT) Bioethics Centre, and was Chairman of UCT`s Department of Medicine and Chief Physician at Groote Schuur Hospital. He is Visiting Professor in Public Health Sciences and Medicine at the University of Toronto, and Director of a NIH (Fogarty International Center) funded program for capacity building in International Research Ethics in southern Africa. His academic interests have included respiratory medicine, academic freedom, medical ethics and the humanities in medicine, human rights, health care systems, health economics and global health. Honours include election as: Foreign Associate Member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine; Honorary Foreign Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; Fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa; Life Fellow of the University of Cape Town, Honorary Fellow of the South African Thoracic Society; Honorary Fellow College of Physicians of South Africa; and Honorary Member of the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society, California.