Prof Charles Mbohwa will receive a Distinguished Educator Award from the global Industrial Engineering and Operations Management Society on 9 March 2016 in Kuala Lumpur. Prof Mbohwa serves as Vice-Dean: Postgraduate Studies, Research and Innovation in the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment at the University of Johannesburg (UJ).
As an established researcher in the field of sustainability engineering and energy, Prof Mbohwa’s specialisations include sustainable engineering, energy systems, Life-Cycle Assessments (LCA’s) and bio-energy/fuel feasibility and sustainability with general research interests in renewable energies and sustainability issues.
Life-Cycle Assessments quantify the environmental impacts associated with all stages of a product’s life from raw material extraction through materials processing, manufacture, distribution, use, repair and maintenance, and disposal or recycling.
Prof Mbohwa’s current research in sustainability engineering includes:
Social and climate change comparison of bio-diesel life cycle impacts in Brazil and South Africa; Life Cycle Assessment and Comparisons of Rail and Road Freight Transportation in China and South Africa; The Potential, Energy and Environmental Impacts of Bio-energy in the Sugar Industry in South Africa; and the Economic, Energy and Environmental Evaluations of Biomass-based Fuel Ethanol based on Life Cycle Assessment.
He is a co-author of the second chapter of the United Nation’s Environmental Programme’s (UNEP) Global Guidance Principles for Life Cycle Assessment Databases: A Basis for Greener Processes and Products 2011. In addition he is Project Leader for the Development of the Climate Change Response Strategy and Action Plan for the Gauteng Department of Agriculture and Rural Development: Use of indigenous knowledge. His is a collaborator in the Enerkey research and implementation project: Energy solutions for Gauteng Province.
He has supervised 15 PhD and more than 40 Master’s students from South Africa, the African continent, and for the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis in Austria. He collaborates with many international partners including Professor Kaltschmitt at the Technical University of Hamburg in Germany and Professor Valerie Thomas at the Georgia Institute of Technology USA.
Prof Mbohwa’s published research spans Life-Cycle Assessment of industrial products, Environmental Management, Industrial Manufacturing, Engineering Management, Systems Dynamics, Waste Management, Energy Production, Energy Efficiency, Renewable Energy Technologies, Energy Systems, E-Commerce, Climate Change Adaptation and Humanitarian logistics.
The Industrial Engineering and Operations Management Society (IEOM Society) is designed to encourage critical thinking in the field of Industrial Engineering (IE) and Operations Management (OM). The IEOM society has professional chapters across the globe.
The Society awards educators who conduct and publish research; and who develop outstanding faculty, employees and exceptional professional engineers.
More about Prof Mbohwa’s research:
