UKZN staff winners, contributors and judges with the Minister of Higher Education and Training, Dr Blade Nzimande.UKZN Staff Members Judges for Prestigious Awards
Two UKZN staff members were part of the panel of judges at the recent National Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences (NIHSS) Inaugural Awards.
Director of Libraries, Ms Joyce Myeza, and Dr Thoko Mnisi of the Research Office were on the Digital Collections judging panel.
Submissions for the awards opened last year to honour outstanding, innovative and socially responsive scholarship that enhances and advances fields in the humanities and social sciences.
Dr Mnisi, a Digitising Specialist, said when she started her work on the social uses of digitisation at her Master of Education and PhD level, she never thought it would land her in being a judge for such prestigious awards.
‘I am happy to see that Human and Social Scientist are not petrified to venture into multi-disciplinary research and taking advantage of tools which have been dominantly used in the discipline of Information and Communication Sciences. I hope such Awards, which are a brain child of the current Minister of Education Dr Blade Nzimande will encourage more social scientists.
Ms Myeza is currently doing her PhD titled Applications of Steganocryptographic methods for securing and preserving digital certificates, supervised by Professor Jonathan Blackledge.
The NIHSS awards event is divided into several categories. In the Creative Collections category, UKZN Music Lecturer, Dr Sazi Dlamini, was part of the five member team which received the award valued at R60 000 for their work titled: “Insurrections in the Category Best Musical Composition/Arrangement”.
Other members of the team were Mr Neo Muyanga, Mr Sumangala Damodaran, Professor Jürgen Bräuninger and Professor Ari Sitas.
UKZN had other submissions under this category which included subcategories such as Fine Art, Performance Art and Creative Writing.
In the Books (Non-Fiction) category, UKZN Press won honours for two titles. The books categories celebrate members of the Humanities and Social Sciences community who are undertaking the vital work of creating post-apartheid and post-colonial forms of scholarship.
Sithembile Shabangu