2024 Inorganic and Carman Conference | Champagne Sports Resort, 2 - 6 June 2024

Plenary Speakers


Nick Long (Imperial College, UK)
Nick Long holds the Sir Edward Frankland BP Endowed Chair in Inorganic Chemistry at Imperial College London.  He is a leader in applied synthetic inorganic and organometallic chemistry, with research interests focussing on transition metal and lanthanide chemistry for the synthesis of functional electronic and renewable energy materials, homogeneous catalysts and probes for biomedical imaging.  He has over 300 publications, with around 14000 citations, an h-index of 56, and i10-index of 160.  His work has recently been recognised by a Royal Society Wolfson Merit Award (2018), the Royal Society of Chemistry Frankland Award (2020), and the Royal Society of Chemistry Interdisciplinary Prize (2023).


Emmanuel Iwuoha (University of Western-Cape, SA)
Prof Emmanuel Iwuoha is an NRF A-Rated Scientist and a SARChI Chair for NanoElectrochemistry and Sensor Technology, in the Department of Chemistry, University of the Western Cape (UWC). He was admitted as a Chartered Chemist (CChem) in 1990, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) in 1999, a Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences (FAAS) in 2018 and a Fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa (FRSSAf) in 2023. His research work focuses on the creation of novel smart functional nanomaterials for next-generation electroanalytical sensor, battery, supercapacitor and solar cell applications. His work has impact on the attainment of the UN SDG 3 on health and well-being for all and the UN SDG 7 on the accessibility and sustainability of energy. He has published over 365 research articles, given more than 72 plenary and keynote presentations and graduated 80 PhDs. Prof Iwuoha received the 2015 UWC Vice-Chancellor's Distinguished Researcher Award. In 2020, he was awarded the Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (HonFRSC) Award – being one of the first two recipients in Africa; and the NRF Champion of Research Capacity Development and Transformation Award. He is a member of the advisory boards of the Journal of the American Chemical Society Gold (JACS Au), Analytical Chemistry and Bioelectrochemistry; an Associate Editor of NPJ Clean Water; and a Guest Editor for Nanomaterials, Materials Today Communication and Frontiers in Sensors.


Sarah Haigh (University of Manchester, UK)
Sarah Haigh is a Professor of Materials Characterisation at the University of Manchester, UK. She is also Director of the bp International Centre for Advanced Materials, a $100M academic-industrial collaboration, and of the University of Manchester’s electron microscopy centre which includes 31 electron microscopes. Her research interests centre on improving understanding of nanomaterials structure and properties using transmission electron microscope (TEM) imaging and analysis techniques. She is particularly interested in 2D materials and in developing in situ TEM imaging methods. She completed undergraduate and doctorate degrees in Material Science at the University of Oxford (2004 and 2008). She is an elected member of Livery of the Worshipful Company of Armourers and Brasiers. She has won several awards including Blavatnik Physical Sciences Medal (2021), Royal Society of Chemistry Analytical Sciences Award (2022), Institute of Materials Mineral and Mining Silver Medal and Rosenhain Medals (2013 and 2017).  She has published over 200 peer reviewed journal papers as an independent academic, including 45 as corresponding author, and 5 book chapters (H-index =62, over 17000 citations).

Keynote Speakers


Catharine Esterhuysen (Stellenbosch University, SA)
After completing a PhD in crystallography under the supervision of Gert Kruger at the Rand Afrikaans University in Johannesburg, South Africa, Catharine Esterhuysen joined Stellenbosch University in 2000. During her studies she developed an interest in computational chemistry, which she was able to develop through Alexander von Humboldt fellowships with Gernot Frenking in Marburg and Tim Clark at Erlangen. Her main research focus is the study of intermolecular interactions, combining her knowledge of computational chemistry and crystallography to explain unusual interactions and their role in the properties of materials. She has served on numerous committees and editorial boards, including as president of the South African Crystallographic Society and Associate Editor at New Journal of Chemistry.


Gregory Smith (University of Cape Town, SA)
Greg Smith is a Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Cape Town. He obtained his undergraduate degree at the University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa (SA) and went on to complete his MSc and PhD on the synthesis of metal-containing polymers and dendrimers as olefin transformation catalysts, under the supervision of Prof. Selwyn Mapolie at the University of the Western Cape (SA). He later joined the University of Bristol (UK) as a Postdoctoral Fellow with Prof. Ian Manners. His research interests in the discipline of Organometallic Chemistry, a subset of Inorganic Chemistry, investigates the synthesis of small molecule and macromolecular organometallic complexes. His primary activities are the development of Platinum Group Metal (PGM)-based complexes, with two broad themes/applications, aimed at the beneficiation of PGM resources available in South Africa. The first theme centres on the use of the organometallic compounds as homogeneous catalysts, whilst the second theme entails investigations into the application of organometallic complexes as chemotherapeutic agents.


Lydia Rhyman (University of Mauritius, Mauritius)
Lydia Rhyman is a researcher in the Computational Chemistry Group of the University of Mauritius, Mauritius and the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. She was awarded a PhD in Computational Chemistry in 2013. She is an Affiliate of the African Academy of Sciences, a member of the Royal Society of Chemistry and a Global Young Academy member. She is also a committee member of the Commonwealth Chemistry Early Career Network representing the Africa region. Her research interest lies in the use of Computational Chemistry to solve chemistry and interdisciplinary problems. She is involved in promoting Computational Chemistry in Africa and science education and she also raises awareness on responsible research practices and integrity. She is active in the organisation of conferences, seminars, workshops and outreach activities. To date she has 135 publications, 4 book chapters and 1 patent.


Kristian Brandt (University of Copenhagen, Denmark)
Kristian Koefoed Brandt leads the Environmental Microbiology Research Group at Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, University of Copenhagen (Denmark). He holds a PhD degree in microbial ecology (1998) from Aarhus University, Denmark. He has worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University (Denmark) and at the NSF Center for Microbial Ecology at Michigan State University (USA) and since then as an associate professor at Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University (2003-2006), University of Copenhagen (since 2007), and Sino-Danish Center (SDC) in Beijing, China (since 2013). Current research areas include the environmental dimension of antibiotic resistance, microbe-pollutant interactions, plant-soil-microbe interactions, bacterial community assembly processes, and bioavailability processes in environmental settings.


Reinout Meijboom (University of Johannesburg, SA)
Reinout Meijboom was born and raised in the Netherlands. He studied chemistry at the University of Groningen where he completed his MSc research under Prof Jan Teuben. Subsequently, he moved to Cape Town to pursue his PhD in organometallic chemistry under the supervision of Prof John R. Moss. Following his PhD, he pursued a post-doctoral fellowship with Prof Andre Roodt at the then Rand Afrikaans University (currently University of Johannesburg) and the University of the Free State. Reinout took up the position of Senior Lecturer at the University of Johannesburg in 2008. He changed his research direction towards heterogeneous catalysis while pursuing the crystallography of silver coordination compounds. He raised through the ranks at UJ to full professor and was the former head of department. Since October 2021, he serves as the Vice-Dean for Research in the Faculty of Science. His current research interests are high throughput experimentation, heterogeneous catalysis, and building Open Source hardware for Chemistry. The latter includes the design and construction of robotic systems for synthetic chemistry. Reinout has published over 200 research papers.


Tiina Leiviskä (University of Oulu, Finland)
Tiina Leiviskä is a Professor in the Chemical Process Engineering unit at University of Oulu, Finland. Tiina Leiviskä obtained her D. Sc. (Tech.) degree in Water Resources Engineering in 2010 and a M.Sc. degree in Chemistry in 2001, both from the University of Oulu. Currently, she is leading the industrial water research group. Her research interests include bio-based water treatment materials, coagulation-flocculation, ion exchange, adsorption, degradation of refractory organics and recovery of valuable components.


Nosipho Moloto (University of the Witwatersrand, SA)
Nosipho Moloto is a full Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of the Witwatersrand (WITS) where she holds the NEDBANK-DSI SARChI Chair in Energy Materials. Nosipho obtained her Masters in Nanotechnology studying quantum dots at the University of Zululand with links to the University of Manchester. She then obtained a PhD in Nanotechnology still working on quantum dots from the CSIR/WITS (2008-2010.  This was followed by a postdoctoral stint at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US (2010). She was a visiting senior scientist at the Institute for Photonic Sciences (Spain) working with the Functional Optoelectronic Nanomaterials Group. In 2014 Nosipho was awarded the Distinguished Young Woman in Science (Physical and Engineering Sciences) by the Ministry of Science and Technology (South Africa) and 2016 she was awarded the NRF Research Excellence Award for Early Career/Emerging Researchers and recently, 2023, the NSTF-South32 Award for Engineering Research Capacity Development. From WITS University, she has received the Friedel Sellschop Research Excellence Award for emerging researchers and the Faculty of Science Supervision Award in 2021. Nosipho is an associate editor for the South African Journal of Chemistry (Nanotechnology) and she has been on selection committees for the Lindau Laureates Meetings (Germany), Serrapiheira Institute’s The Science Program (Brazil) and the King Faisal Prize (UAE). Nosipho Moloto has co-authored more than 100 papers on the syntheses of semiconductor nanomaterials for water, energy, biomedical and sensor applications.


Stephen Ojwach (University of KwaZulu-Natal, SA)
Stephen Ojwach obtained his BScHons degree in Chemistry from the University of Nairobi, MSc and PhD degrees in Inorganic Chemistry (with a bias in organometallic chemistry and homogeneous catalysis) from the University of Western Cape and University Johannesburg (South Africa) respectively. Prof Ojwach is currently a Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa). His research area is mainly on the design of transition metal complexes, investigation of their coordination behavior and applications as catalysts in various organic transformations and sustainable processes, bioinorganic chemistry. He has published over 120 research articles in the fields of Inorganic Chemistry, Organometallic Chemistry, Catalysis and Bioinorganic Chemistry. He is currently an Associate Editor, RSC Advances, Royal Society of Chemistry.


Zenixole R. Tshentu (Nelson Mandela University, SA)
Zenixole R. Tshentu Research Excellence Award from NMU (2015) and a Raikes Medal from South African Chemical Institute (2016). He has experience in solid state and solution studies of transition metal complexes as well as using inorganic/organic polymer materials in heterogeneous catalysis and in separation technology. He has been involved in several projects including designing catalysts and adsorbents for desulfurization and denitrogenation of fuels as well as designing selective reagents for separation of base metals and platinum group metals. His pursuit of knowledge is in principles that drive towards selectivity and specificity in chemical systems with the aim of applying them in greening of fuel products, sustainable processing of fuel oils and beneficiation of mineral resources as well as in valorisation of secondary products.


Malik Dilshad Khan (National Research Foundation, SA)
Dr. Malik Dilshad Khan is an NRF-rated researcher in the nanotechnology group at the University of Zululand. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Zululand in 2018 under the supervision of Prof. Neerish Revaprasadu. During his Ph.D., he visited the University of Manchester for a year and was trained in state-of-the-art instruments and synthetic techniques. He is an expert in designing and synthesizing suitable metal organic precursors for functional nanomaterials via different routes and thin films by AACVD. His research interests include synthesizing 2-dimensional materials, multinary metal oxides, sulfides, selenides, phosphides, intermetallic alloys and solid solutions for HER, OER, ORR and supercapacitance. He has also visited the Institute of Physical Chemistry in Poland and worked on the deposition of nanomaterials at the liquid-liquid interfaces and investigated their ORR via SECM. He has co-authored over 80 articles in well-reputed journals, 6 book chapters and a patent. He is also the editor of Nanosciences: Specialist Periodical Reports, a book series by RSC publishers.  


Roman Gorbachev (University of Manchester, UK)
My research area is experimental condensed matter physics, with an emphasis on fabrication of nanoscale low-dimensional devices. The recent availability of novel nanoscale materials, such as atomically thin 2-dimensional crystals and nanowires has enabled the assembly and study of composite electronics and mechanical devices, as well as the exploration of fundamental physics in these low-dimensional systems. The use of modern state-of-the-art semiconductor device fabrication techniques and the development of new methods of material synthesis/manipulation are essential parts of this research, which gives an ample space to explore the new physical phenomena and can bring an impact to future technologies. To date I have published over 85 peer-reviewed papers, attracting over 30,000 citations and h-index of 55 (google scholar).