Harry Oppenheimer Fellowship 

We congratulate Professor Anthony Figaji, who was jointly awarded the Harry Oppenheimer Fellowship award for the groundbreaking new research done by his research group, African Brain Child (ABC) at the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital and UCT’s Neuroscience Institute. Read more about this recognition of important work decoding the physiology and improving the treatment of brain injury in children, as well as the award here.  

 

Royal Society Fellowship 

Professor Claire Spottiswoode, from UCT’s Department of Biological Sciences, was one of over 90 outstanding researchers across the world who were elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society this year.  This esteemed group of trailblazers from across the world, represent the best of scientific endeavour, from discovery to research with real-world impact.  Claire’s work focuses on the ecology and evolution of interspecies interactions through her fieldwork on African birds.  Read more about Claire’s work here.  

 

Integrating Atmospheric Science and Oceanography - Associate Professor Katye Altiere, scoops Oppenheimer Memorial Trust’s New Frontiers Research Award 

UCT’s Associate Professor Katye Altiere, from the Department of Oceanography recently received the Oppenheimer Memorial Trust’s New Frontiers Research Award, which recognises efforts of visionary early-to mid-career researchers determined to build high-performance research teams engaged in cutting edge research.  Read about her work and award here. 

 

UCT academic honoured for lifesaving research on African adolescents 

Professor Lucie Cluver, honorary professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health at UCT and professor of Child and Family Social Work at the University of Oxford, has been appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2025 King’s Birthday Honours List. The award recognises her exceptional contributions to children’s wellbeing and global public health.   Professor Cluver has co-led groundbreaking interdisciplinary research for over 14 years across UCT and Oxford. Working closely with Associate Professor Elona Toska, director of UCT’s Accelerate Research Hub, and Professor Cathy Ward, director of UCT’s Safety and Violence Initiative and the Centre for Social Science Research, Cluver has advanced research that directly improves the lives of children and adolescents across sub-Saharan Africa. Read about Lucie’s work here 

 

UCT professor elected Fellow of the British Academy for pioneering linguistic work 

Renowned linguist and emeritus professor at UCT, Rajend Mesthrie, has been elected a Fellow of the British Academy, one of the highest honours for scholars in the humanities and social sciences. Mesthrie is part of the 58 UK fellows, 30 international fellows, and four honorary fellows elected to the Fellowship this year. 

Mesthrie has published extensively on the socio-historical linguistics of Indian languages, African languages, English and Afrikaans in South Africa, plus their multilingual admixtures. At the same time, his work on English as a global language and the sociolinguistics of language contact and variation is widely recognised internationally.     Read about his work here.