Prof Hein Venter: Exceptional Academic Achievers

He is the coordinator for postgraduate degrees in the Department. He also supervises and co-supervises more than 30 postgraduate students on honours, master’s, and doctoral levels. He is the research group leader for the Digital Forensic Science Research Group, responsible for supervising postgraduate students. He has supervised 74 BSc honours mini dissertations, 42 MSc dissertations, and 12 PhD theses. Prof Venter produced more than 260 peer-reviewed journal and conference publications during his research career and holds a Google Scholar h-index of 28 with 3115 references to his research (2219 since 2016). He is a reviewer for several international conferences and journals and holds several research grants. Prof Venter has been a member of the Institution of Electrical Engineers and the Association of Computing Machinery since 2007, and a member of the American Academy for Forensic Sciences since 2009. He is also the general chair for the Information Security South Africa academic conference.

Prof Venter has engaged in extensive international collaboration, the most noteworthy being his contribution to the standardisation of the digital forensic investigation process on the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) level. He initiated the process in 2010 and was appointed as the main editor of the standard. The standard is entitled ‘ISO/IEC 27043: Information Technology – Security Techniques – Incident Investigation Principles and Processes’ and was published in March 2015 by ISO. He was also editor of ‘ISO/IEC 27035: Information Technology – Incident management – Part 3: Incident response operations’ published in 2020 by ISO. He is co-editor of a new international standard on Security Operations Centers.

Prof Venter recently served on a panel that was tasked by the Department of Science and Technology to develop a national cybersecurity research agenda that includes cybersecurity awareness, cybersecurity human capital development, identity, privacy and trust management, cybersecurity legislation, threat detection, mitigation and response, digital forensics, eGovernment security, and critical infrastructure protection.

Prof Venter received a B3 rating from the NRF.

Dr Hehdi Mehrabi: Exceptional Young Researchers

Dr Mehdi Mehrabi is a senior lecturer in the Department of Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering and a member of the Clean Energy Research Group, in the Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology.

His research interests include heat transfer and fluid mechanics, computational fluid dynamics, microfluidics and their applications in biomedical engineering, and modelling and optimisation based on artificial intelligence techniques. He also researches clean and renewable energy, energy efficiency based on multi-objective optimisation techniques, and the application of machine learning methods in mechanical and

biomedical engineering.

Peer-reviewed papers on his research projects have been published in more than 20 international mechanical engineering journals, and he has presented his research results at major international conferences around the world. The number of citations accredited to him and his h-index attest to the high quality of his research outputs. In addition, he has successfully supervised more than 50 undergraduate and postgraduate students at the University of Pretoria and regularly serves as a member of the examination committee for master’s and PhD candidates.

Dr Mehrabi received a Y1 rating from the NRF in 2020.

Dr Sheperd Tichapondwa: Exceptional Young Researchers

Dr Shepherd Tichapondwa is a senior lecturer in the Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology, where he teaches chemical engineering materials, environmental engineering (specialisation), and chemical water treatment at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. He holds a BEng (Hons) in Chemical Engineering from the National University of Science and Technology (Zimbabwe), and a BEng (Hons) specialising in polymer processing, a master’s in Chemical Engineering, and a PhD in Engineering from the University of Pretoria.

His research focuses on the synthesis and formulation of materials for various applications. In particular, the research covers fields such as pyrotechnics and primary explosives, which seek to develop ‘green’ time delay compositions and lead-free primary explosives for use in mine detonators. Additionally, he is involved in the development of advanced drinking and wastewater treatment technologies. His main project involves developing visible light-activated photocatalysts that can be applied to degrade refractory and emerging organic pollutants. His other focus areas include synthesis and tailoring cost-effective adsorbent materials, microbial fuel cells, phytoremediation, and phytomining. This work is conducted in the Water Utilisation Engineering Division and Institute of Applied Materials in the department. His research activities have culminated in more than 30 scientific peer-reviewed journal articles, and he has presented at 10 national and international conferences. Examples include the 43rd International Pyrotechnics Society Seminar hosted in Fort Collins, Colorado, USA and the 22nd International Conference on Process Integration, Modelling,

Optimisation for Energy Saving and Pollution Reduction (PRES19) hosted in Crete, Greece. He attributes his research outputs to the close working relationship with his collaborators, funders, and postgraduate

Dr Marié Hattingh: Teaching Excellence

Dr Marié Hattingh is a lecturer in the Department of Informatics, Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology and holds the following degrees: BMil (BSc), BMil honours, MMil (Technology), and a PhD in Informatics. She lectures in critical thinking and problem solving, systems analysis and design at undergraduate level, and human-computer interaction at postgraduate level.

Dr Hattingh’s research focuses on the role of social media in communities. She takes an interdisciplinary view when applying either qualitative or quantitative approaches to study the use of social media. She is generally interested in social media’s influence on its users, positive and harmful use of social media (dark web, fake news, narcissism and addiction), learning opportunities, and the moral and ethical consequences of social media use.

She recently received important recognition and awards from the Department of Informatics, University of Pretoria, including the highest student evaluation on postgraduate level (2019), Academic Achievers Teaching and Learning Excellence Award (2020) and the Department of Informatics award for the Highest Research Output (2017, 2019, 2020).

She coordinates the Bachelors in Information Technology in Information Systems (BIT IS) programme and is the departmental marketing representative. Dr Hattingh is the honourary treasurer of the organisation for South African Information Communication Technologist (SAICSIT) and the assistant editor of the South African Computer Journal (SACJ). In 2019 she was the organising co-chair of the International Federation of the treatment of Information (Féderation Internationale pour le traitement de l’information) Working Group

(IFIP WG 6.11 I3E2020) conference.

She has authored and co-authored 25 journal articles and delivered 16 conference papers at local and international conferences.

Dr Hattingh received a Y2 rating from the NRF.