The University of Johannesburg’s (UJ) Vice-Chancellor and Principal, Prof Tshilidzi Marwala, was recognised through an honorary doctorate at the Caucasus University in Tbilisi, Georgia. This recognition comes on the back of his academic leadership and progress in the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR).
Prof Marwala was also recently appointed as the Rector of the United Nations University (UNU) in Tokyo, Japan.
Prof Marwala and three others were honoured at the Caucasus University for their innovative research towards building better societies.
A registered professional engineer, Prof Marwala is also a fellow of The Academy of Sciences for the Developing World, Academy of Science of South Africa, South African Academy of Engineering and a distinguished member of the Association for Computing Machinery.
Prof Marwala holds a BSc in Mechanical Engineering (magna cum laude) from Case Western Reserve University, a Master of Mechanical Engineering from University of Pretoria, PhD in Engineering from University of Cambridge and was a postdoctoral associate at Imperial College. His research interests include applications of artificial intelligence to engineering, computer science, finance and medicine.
Commenting on his honorary doctorate, Prof Marwala said: ” I am profoundly moved and humbled by this prestigious honour. I would like to dedicate this to the entire UJ Community for their unwavering support. Accessible, excellent and quality education is a human right.”
Prof Marwala’s extensive track record includes human capacity development having supervised 47 Masters and 31 PhD graduates to completion. Some of these students have proceeded with their doctoral and postdoctoral studies at leading universities such as Harvard, Rutgers, Purdue, Oxford, Cambridge, British Columbia and Concordia.
He has published more than 20 books, over 300 papers in journals, proceedings and book chapters and holds three international patents. Prof Marwala has received more than 45 awards including the Order of Mapungubwe from the South African Government and the President’s Award from the National Research Foundation.
