GUEST AND ALUMNI

Prof Jane Catherine Ngila received her Bachelor of Education in Science, BEd (Science) and MSc (Chemistry) from Kenyatta University, Kenya in 1986 and 1992, respectively. She obtained her PhD from the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia in 1996. Her teaching and research career started in 1989 when she was employed as a tutorial fellow at Kenyatta University and later promoted to lecturer position in 1996. She also worked at the University of Botswana as a Lecturer/Senior Lecturer (1998-2006), and at the University of KwaZulu Natal, Durban, as Senior Lecturer (2006-2011) before joining University of Johannesburg, as a Full Professor of Analytical/Environmental Chemistry in April 2011.

Prof Ngila is a Visiting Professor at the University of Nairobi (UON), Department of Chemistry. She is a former Head of Department (HOD) of Applied Chemistry at University of Johannesburg, a position she held from 2013 to 2016. As HOD at UJ, she oversaw a number of Centres of Excellence in Nanotechnology and Water, including the National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa Research Chair Initiative (SARChI) Chair in Nanotechnology and Water; the South Africa's Department of Science and Technology (DST)/Mintek Nanotechnology Innovation Centre Water node (NIC Water); the National Nanoscience Postgraduate Teaching and Training Platform (NNPTTP) UJ node (NNPTTP is a consortium of three nodes - UJ, University of the Free State and Nelson Mandela University; and the University of the Western Cape as the hub).

Prof Ngila’s research work is on Analytical/Environmental Chemistry and focuses on water quality/pollution monitoring, methods of water treatment based on nanotechnology, development of analytical methodologies for detecting metal pollutants and other chemical substances including their speciation analysis, in water. She is one of the highly productive women in research in Africa, which is evidenced by her impressive research profile. Prof Ngila has trained 22 Honours, 33 MSc and 30 PhD postgraduate students, and 18 postdoctoral fellows. Three of her South Africa female students have received both the PhD (Ms Eseoghene Umukoro 2016 and Dr Nomvano Mketo in 2015) and Postdoctoral (Dr Philiswa Nomngongo in 2014) L’Oreal-UNESCO For Women in Science Fellowship Awards. She has disseminated her research findings in international conferences in more than 30 countries.  She is a National Research Foundation of South Africa rated researcher, with over 430 publications comprising of 209 journal articles, 15 book chapters, 17 conference proceedings, 37 keynote/invited lectures and 160 conference abstracts. Her ResearchGate Score is 39.44. She has Google Scholar h-Index of 33, i10-index 95, total citation of 3450.

For more information about Prof. Ngila please visit: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0121-4567 ; https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jane-Ngila ; https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=NNc4NEYAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

Professor Fulgentius Lugemwa is an Associate Professor at Penn State York University. He received his Bachelor of Science degree and Master of Science at Makerere University and obtained his PhD at the University of Maine, Orono. He is a member of America Chemical Society, American Society of Pharmacognosy and Council on Undergraduate Research.

Professor Lugemwa visited the Department in 2019-2020 academic year as a Visiting Professor and taught a course in Organic Chemistry, Co-supervised postgraduate student and made a presentation seminar topic "Accelerated maturation/aging of distilled beverages" . His research interest focuses on carbohydrate and natural products chemistry, green synthesis in organic chemistry, structure and activity relationship of antioxidants from from plants, and accelarated aging of distilled spirits and associated technology transfer.