Cape Town - As International Day of Women in Science is celebrated on Saturday, C2-rated researcher at the National Research Foundation, Professor Ntebogeng Mokgalaka-Fleischmann, is working to open up “the world of science where everything is possible” to other girls.
The UN’s 8th commemoration of the day will focus on the role of women and girls and science in relation to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with a focus on SDG 6 (clean water and sanitation), SDG 7 (affordable and clean energy), SDG 9 (industry, innovation and infrastructure), SDG 11 (sustainable cities and communities) and SDG17 (means of implementation).
A significant gender gap has persisted throughout the years at all levels of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) disciplines across the world, the UN notes, and even though women have made tremendous progress towards increasing their participation in higher education, they are still under-represented in these fields.
Director of the Mamelodi campus at the University of Pretoria (UP), Mokgalaka-Fleischmann said with the Fourth Industrial Revolution upon us, it was imperative that girls were part of the process.
“This Fourth Industrial Revolution is about innovation. It’s about designing new things, or doing things differently and improving service delivery.
That requires you to know how to code, to know mathematics, to have critical thinking skills, so we need women and girls in these challenging sciences.”
In 2005, Mokgalaka-Fleischmann obtained her DTech in Chemistry, where she was the only woman graduating with a doctorate in that ceremony at Tshwane University of Technology.
It was an achievement made even more meaningful because she had initially failed matric maths, which had dashed her original career plans.
Her mantra has always been hard work and focus, even if that focus has to take an unexpected direction.
Her heart had been set on becoming a chemical engineer since the day a former learner came to Mamelodi High School to talk about his job of refining coal to fuels and synthetic chemicals.
“This was a whole world of discovery, designing and creating materials for societal benefit and economic growth,” she said.
She has added an MBA in Education Management to her string of degrees, and has held the director of the Mamelodi campus at UP position since July.
During her postdoctoral studies at the University of Texas in El Paso Mokgalaka-Fleischmann specialised in phytoremediation, the use of plants to remove pollutants from the environment.
“You know those cakes, those yellow-looking mountains when you drive to Springs, or towards Soweto and Krugersdorp. Mine dumps?
“The actual name is a tailings storage facility. The older ones were not constructed with the best technology and lead to the leaching of toxic metals into soil, ultimately contaminating groundwater, a vital source of water for some communities. They are also without cover, so wind blows away dust laden with toxic metals to nearby communities. This can cause silicosis and other respiratory health problems,” she said, “and necessitates environmentally-friendly solutions such as plants to remove toxic metals and stop them from leaching to the groundwater and to control the dust.
Have you seen the Hennops River? You should look up its status,” she said, introducing her latest research passion: microplastics, “something that we need to zoom in, because we don’t even understand how they interact with other contaminants, how they interact with organisms in the water and their ecotoxicological effects ...”
Mokgalaka-Fleischmann’s primary focus is the Mamelodi campus, which offers the foundational year of extended curriculum programmes for about 800 first-years and has been declared the social innovation hub for the university.
She is still an active researcher and supervisor through her affiliation with UP’s Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, and her position as professor extraordinaire at TUT.
She is collaborating on a project with the Agricultural Research Council, Unisa, North-West University and TUT. Funded by the Water Research Commission, they have established an online interactive free-access platform with information about Contaminants of Emerging Concern (CECs) in South African surface waters.
“It starts with debunking stereotypes about who can be scientists and what scientists look like. Second, to remove the fear of maths and science, especially in previously disadvantaged communities.
“We must really challenge girls to go into careers in maths technology and engineering. That’s where we need them. Traditionally, a lot of women are encouraged to pursue careers in other sciences, such as chemistry, biological sciences, microbiology, biochemistry, food science. Perhaps they are seen as less challenging.
“More girls in science is not only about training in the discipline, but about training people who are going to have the skills to contribute towards building the economy and also to make sure we have a just society –access to clean water, clean air, access to health facilities, basic human rights, but also from the lens of women and girls,” said Mokgalaka-Fleischmann.
Cape Times
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