Pleasant surprise for Associate Professor

An Associate Professor in the Chemistry Department received a pleasant surprise in the form of a communication congratulating her on being a recipient of a C2 rating by the National Research Foundation (NRF).

“My first reaction when I heard the news was shock and I suspected that a possible mistake was made,” says Prof Mangaka Matoetoe. The driven, focused, hardworking academic, who has a very good working relationship with her co-researchers, Dr Ncediwe Ndube -Tsolekile, Dr Kanyisa Maqashu and postgraduate students, statess that “this milestone made me happy and strengthened me to continue in my research path because it indicated what my research counterparts feel about my research abilities”.

Matoetoe, who has been an associate professor in the Chemistry Department for the past 10 years, says the C2 rating means that all six reviewers for a rating application agreed that a researcher under review is an established researcher, based on the research output in the last eight years. “Rating is based on researcher outputs quality, articles, conferences, book chapters, supervision as well as the h-index from corpus, google scholar and other relevant websites,” she continues.

“This basically means that in the past eight years I was able to publish in reputable international journals of high impact factor. In addition, I had invited quests presentations as well as keynote presentations in various conferences.”

Her research interest is in Material Electrochemistry focusing on synthesis of metal nanoparticles (metal, metal oxide and bimetallic), polymers and quantum dots (ternary and quaternary porphyrin based) as well as their composites. This also include application of these materials in fabrication of Electrochemical sensors.

“Reasons for my interest in this discipline is partly my training and sensors’ potential to solve health issues through their fast selective and low detection limits ability.” She says the rating will enhance promotion opportunities for her at CPUT and it also opens more rating NRF funding applications. “Hence, it has a potential to positively influence my carrier.”

Matoetoe who enjoys reading, walking, and participating a lot in her friends’ academic community services says now she can apply for full professorship and “I can personally submit my research proposals for rated NRF fundings for funding in the next three years”. “This proposal includes students funding therefore it is possible to have funded postgraduate students for the next three years through this available funding opportunity.”

She adds this achievement required acknowledgement from her fellow researchers that her research “is locally known and has some international visibility”.

Matoetoe also acknowledges that juggling between her busy academic schedule and family has not been easy, saying that in the beginning of her career this was a major hassle. “Hence my studies progress was staggered as it can be seen my PhD graduation was at 38 years of age and starting on independent research 10 years later. However, currently my children are younger adults, this has improved my career progress a lot.”

However, she achieved a lot because of her family’s support. In her career Matoetoe has been a quality control manager, a deputy dean of faculty, a programme coordinator, and a supervisor, “all these achievements were due to the support I had at home and work”. Her family inspired her to push during hard times because they all have careers of their own and “my children had pushed their own studies during my long absence”. “Therefore, I had to ensure that their suffering has fruits at the end.”

Matoetoe also appreciates CPUT especially for not standing in “my way in my applications for funding, [for] that I am very grateful”. “To any researcher interested in reaching at this level I would advise them to have a focused research theme, target high impact journals and have consistent productivity.”

Written by Aphiwe Boyce

Email: boyceap@cput.ac.za