Bristol Illustrious Visiting Professor Mamokgethi Phakeng, PhD(Wits), Hon DSc (Bristol), MASSAf, GCOB, FAAS

Professor Mamokgethi Phakeng has been our inaugural Bristol Illustrious Visiting Professor for 2021/22, you can read the University of Bristol's news announcement here as well as our IRP news article, her biography can be viewed below.

A recording of the launch event held on the 20th October 2021 and her public lecture held on International Women's Day, 8th March 2022, 'One Country, many languages: Can South Africa's multilingualism contribute to social cohesion?', are both available to view on the IRP YouTube channel. There is also a blog post about her public lecture, viewable here.

Professor Phakeng returned to the Univeristy of Bristol in the first week of October 2022 for the final part of her year-long Bristol Illustrious Visiting Professorship.  She took part in two public lecture events, one was in her research area of Mathematics Education 'Mathematics Education and Language Diversity: From Language-as-Problem to Language-as-Resource'.   She also took part in an 'In Conversation' event with The Rt Hon. Lord Paul Boateng in which they discussed legacies of slavery, 'hidden histories' and contemporary racism. 

Biography:

Mamokgethi Phakeng (formerly Setati) began her term of office as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Town on 1 July 2018, where she had been serving as Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research and Internationalisation since January 2017. Previous to this appointment she served as Vice Principal for Research and Innovation at the University of South Africa (Unisa) for five years, after serving three years as Executive Dean of the College of Science, Engineering and Technology at the same university. She holds a PhD in Mathematics Education from the University of the Witwatersrand and is a highly regarded B1 NRF-rated scientist with over 80 research papers and five edited volumes published.  She has been invited to deliver over 40 keynote/plenary talks at international conferences, and as a visiting professor in universities around the world (in Australia, Botswana, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, India, Italy, Jamaica, Kenya, Lebanon, Lesotho, Mexico, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Senegal, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, UK and USA). She has won numerous awards for her research and community work, including the Order of the Baobab (Silver) conferred on her by the President of South Africa in April 2016. In August 2014 CEO magazine named her the most influential woman academic in Africa, in August 2016 she was awarded the prestigious Businesswoman of the Year Award in the education category and in 2020 she was included in Forbes’ inaugural list of the 50 Most Powerful Women in Africa. In July 2019 the University of Bristol conferred on her an Honorary Doctorate in Science in recognition of her leadership role in mathematics education in South Africa.

Kgethi, as she is popularly known, was elected as a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) in November 2007; an honorary member of the Golden Key International Honour Society in May 2009, an honorary life member of the Association for Mathematics Education of South Africa (AMESA) in July 2009 and a Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences in 2018. In 2008 she became the first black South African researcher to be appointed to co-chair a study commissioned by the International Commission on Mathematical Instruction. The study entitled “mathematics and language diversity” has completed its work and published a volume in 2016, which she co-edited.

She is a member of the board of the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls (OWLAG); a trustee of the FirstRand Foundation and the South African Student Solidarity Foundation for Education (SASSFE). In 2016 she was appointed by the then Deputy President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, to chair the Human Resource Development Council standing committee on Mathematics and Science Education. She served as member of the board of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and chaired its Research Development and Innovation Committee from January 2015 till September 2017. She was elected in 2011 as the first woman President of the Convocation of the University of the Witwatersrand and served for five years till 2016. She led the Association for Mathematics Education of South Africa (AMESA) as its first woman National President from 2002 to 2006, served as founding chairperson of the Board of the South African Mathematics Foundation (SAMF) from 2004 to 2006 and secretary and member of the executive committee of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (PME) from 2003 to 2007.

Kgethi is founder of the Adopt-a-learner Foundation (www.adopt-a-learner.com), a non-profit organisation that started in 2004 and provides financial and educational support to students from township and rural areas to acquire higher education qualifications.

Link to Professor Phakeng's profile at the University of Cape Town: https://www.uct.ac.za/main/about/management/vice-chancellor