Tshilidzi Marwala

Deputy Vice Chancellor of Research and Innovation of University of Johannesburg (South Africa) desde 2013, o Prof. Dr. Marwala é um dos mais destacados pesquisadores mundiais na área de Inteligência Computacional tendo recebido, ao longo de sua carreira, mais de 50 dos mais importantes prêmios e comendas científicas e acadêmicas de seu país e internacionais e sendo membro sênior e/ou Fellow Member de 11 destacadas Sociedades Internacionais de Pesquisa destacando-se o IEEE, ACM e Word Academy of Sciences dentre outras. Um dos líderes científicos da África do Sul, o prof. Marwala publicou 09 livros, 27 capítulos de livros, 40 artigos em periódicos internacionais e mais de 220 artigos nas principais conferências internacionais na sua área de atuação atuando fortemente na popularização da ciência e tecnologia em seu país e internacionalmente com mais de 40 trabalhos, adicionalmente a seus trabalhos de pesquisa, nesta área possuindo ainda 03 patentes registradas em Institutos Internacionais. O prof. Marwala destaca-se também por sua vasta experiência na orientação tanto de teses de doutorado - com 19 teses orientadas - quanto de dissertações de mestrado - 48 dissertações orientadas até o ano de 2015. Conta atualmente com 05 orientações em andamento (mestrado e doutorado) já tendo também supervisionado 07 estágios de pós doutoramento e dezenas de estudantes de graduação. Atuante em seu país, participou de mais de 20 comitês em nível de Governo Federal em nas áreas de ensino e pesquisa sendo ainda revisor de 28 periódicos internacionais de alto impacto nas mais diversas áreas e contando com uma rede de pesquisa que inclui mais de uma dezena de Instituições de Pesquisa de Ponta destacando-se a NASA, University of Windsor e Virginia Commonwealth University dentre outras.

Tshilidzi Marwala is currently the Deputy Vice Chancellor: Research, Internationalisation and the Library at the University of Johannesburg. He was the Executive Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment at the University of Johannesburg. He was previously a full Professor of Electrical Engineering, the Carl and Emily Fuchs Chair of Systems and Control Engineering as well as the South Africa Chair (SARChI) of Systems Engineering at the University of the Witwatersrand. Prior to this, he was an executive assistant to the technical director at the South African Breweries. He has served as the Chair of the Local Loop Unbundling Committee that was tasked by the Department of Communications with the responsibility to unbundle Telkom?s local loop, as a Chairman of Pikitup Board, on the Board of Directors of the State Information Technology Agency (SITA), EOH Pty Ltd, Denel Soc Ltd, City Power Johannesburg Soc Ltd, as a Deputy Chairman of the Limpopo Business Support Agency, as a member of the National Advisory Council on Innovation, and as a member of Statistics South Africa Council. He is a member of the ICT Advisory Council of the South African government and he is a Chairman of the ICT Infrastructure of the Department of Communications. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering (magna cum laude) from Case Western Reserve University (USA), a Master of Mechanical Engineering from the University of Pretoria, a PhD in Engineering from Cambridge University, was a post-doctoral research associate at the Imperial College (London) and completed a Program for Leadership Development at Harvard Business School. He is a registered professional engineer, a Fellow of TWAS, The World Academy of Sciences, the Academy of Science of South Africa, The African Academy of Sciences, CSIR and the South African Academy of Engineering. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineering) and a distinguished member of the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery). His research interests are multi-disciplinary and they include the applications of computational intelligence to engineering, computer science, finance, social science and medicine. He has extensive track record in human capacity development having supervised 46 Masters and 19 PhD students to completion. Some of these students have proceeded with their doctoral and post-doctoral studies at leading universities such as Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge, British Columbia, Rutgers, Purdue and Concordia. He has published 8 books, over 260 papers in journals, proceedings and book chapters and hold three international patents. He is an associate editor of the International Journal of Systems Science (Taylor and Francis Publishers) and was an associate editor of the South African Journal of Science. He has received more than 40 awards including the Order of Mapungubwe and the President?s Award of the National Research Foundation. His writings and opinions have appeared in the New Scientist and Time Magazines.