Dr Pulane Molokwane

Dr Molokwane is a registered Nuclear Physicist, Water and Environmental Engineering Specialist Professional. She boasts over 18 years of expertise and experience in groundwater remediation, research in nuclear process and solid waste strategies, solutions and technologies, petroleum and energy industry. She has an extensive corporate governance experience locally and internationally. She serves on the advisory body to the President of SA, the National Planning Commission (NPC).  

She is the Commissioner responsible for Science and Technology, currently chairperson of Professional Capable State and Active Citizenry(Governance)  Workstream. Dr Molokwane has occupied senior positions at PBMR Pty Ltd, Sasol Technology, SA Intellectual Property and others. She served/s on the boards of South African Forestry Company SOC Limited (SAFCOL), IUCMA, Sedibeng Water Board, Nuclear Energy Corporation of SA (NECSA) and ESKOM SOC Limited, SANBI, PIC (Nominee Director), Siyanda Resources, Sublime Technologies etc and steering committees and panels within the Science and Innovation and Water Departments. To date, she has authored over 40 peer reviewed papers and four book chapters and monologues. 

She holds a PhD degree from Environmental Engineering’s Water Utilisation (Chemical Engineering), an M.Sc. (ARST), a Post-Graduate Diploma in Applied Radiation Sciences and Technology, and a B.Sc. (Physics and Chemistry)

Tracy-Lynn Field
School of Law, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa

Tracy-Lynn has worked in the School of Law at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa since 2003. She was promoted to full professor in 2017 and has held the Claude Leon Chair in Earth Justice and Stewardship since 2022. In October 2023, she was awarded the status of honorary professor at the School of Law, University of Edinburgh.

Tracy-Lynn focuses on the law and governance of climate change, water, energy, and mining. Her role is largely based around producing peer-reviewed academic research, supervising postgraduate research students, teaching postgraduate students, advocacy, and public engagement. She has supported the work of non-governmental environmental organizations in southern Africa for twenty years and is currently a board member of the Wildlife and Environmental Society of South Africa.

Tracy-Lynn has degrees in music, law, and social science. She graduated with a PhD from the University of the Witwatersrand in 2012. She is also an admitted advocate of the High Court of South Africa.

Deshni Pillay
Nature, Climate and Energy Portfolio Manager at the United Nations Development Programme

Deshni Pillay was previously the Chief Director of the Biodiversity Information and Policy Advice Division at the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI). She was responsible for providing strategic input to enable the implementation of national projects and multi-lateral environmental agreements, supporting the management of South Africa’s biodiversity assets and ecological infrastructure.

She has led several large and diverse teams of policy practitioners and project implementers that provided policy advice and support to the Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries (DFFE) and managed programmes of work on mainstreaming biodiversity into various sectors, mobilizing biodiversity information for planning and securing strategic water source areas for water security in South Africa at national and provincial level.

Prior to joining SANBI she was employed by the South African Parliament as the Content Advisor to the Select Committee on Land and Mineral Resources, providing policy, content and oversight support to the parliamentary committee. She also serves as a Project Steering Committee member of the BIOFIN project, was a member of the Resource Mobilization Technical Task Team of DFFE, a negotiator for South Africa to the Convention on Biodiversity on knowledge management, capacity building and mainstreaming biodiversity and has led the implementation of SANBI’s Presidential Employment Stimulus Project which created jobs to facilitate a post-COVID-19 green economic recovery in South Africa.

Ms Pillay holds a MSc in Biology (Biodiversity) from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala University and the Swedish Biodiversity Centre and is currently conducting her research on the political ecology of biodiversity for communities living, working and managing ecological infrastructure in critical biodiversity areas, towards her PhD studies. She is passionate about championing social justice, steering organizational coherence and building human capital in the biodiversity sector.

Dr. Zwanani Titus Mathe (Pr. Eng)
Chief Executive Officer, SANEDI

Dr Titus Mathe is a South African who is passionate about the development of Africa. Titus has more than 3 decades of industrial and academic work experience. He is currently a CEO at the South African National Energy Development Institute (SANEDI), reporting under DMRE. Titus has repositioned SANEDI to play a crucial role in energy matters, both locally and globally. It is all thanks to the experience he gained when he worked for Eskom in various leadership roles. Dr Mathe has several academic qualifications, most notably is a PhD in Chemical Engineering from UCT obtained in 2001, Master’s degree in Business Leadership (MBL) from UNISA obtained in 2007, BSc in Chemical Engineering obtained from Howard University, USA, obtained in 1995, and a National Diploma in Chemical Engineering obtained from Mangosuthu University of Technology (MUT) in 1989. Dr Mathe is registered with the Engineering Council of South Africa (ECSA) as a Professional Engineer, a Member of the South African Institute of Chemical Engineers (SAIChE), A Member of the South African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (SAIMM), a Fellow member of the South African Academy of Engineering (SAAE), a Council member of SAIChE, a member of various Academic Institutions Advisory Boards. He is also a former member of the Engineering Council of South Africa (ECSA), and a former member of the Council for Built Environment (CBE). Recently, nominated to be part of the World Energy Council South Africa Committee.

Dr. Setobane Mangena (PhD, MBA)
Executive Cluster Manager, CSIR

Setobane Mangena is an Executive Manager for the Chemicals Cluster at the CSIR. He rejoined the CSIR in Mar2024 after spending about 20 years at Sasol where he fulfilled the roles of a Scientist, Principal Specialist, Senior Manager and acting Vice President in the Research and Technology division. He holds a Master’s degree in Chemistry, another Master’s degree in Project Management, an MBA in Renewables, and a PhD in Chemical Engineering. Setobane is passionate about innovation and sustainability.

Prof. Thokozani Majozi (CEng, FIChemE)

Thokozani Majozi is the Executive Dean of Engineering and the Built Environment and a full professor in the School of Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering, Wits University, where he also holds an NRF/DST Chair in Sustainable Process Engineering. His major contributions to research to date are the development of a continuous-time framework for the synthesis of batch plants, a novel technique for near zero-effluent batch chemical facilities, and a process integration technique for integrated water and membrane network systems. He has developed advanced models for prediction of performance in reverse osmosis and electrodialysis membranes. All these contributions have been adopted by industry.
He was appointed as an associate professor at University of Pretoria in 2004 and promoted to a full professor at the end of 2008. He was also an associate professor in computer science at the University of Pannonia in Hungary from 2005 to 2009. Majozi completed his BScEng (Chemical) degree in 1994 and his MScEng (Chemical) degree in 1998 at the University of Natal in Durban (UND). In 1999 he received a Commonwealth Scholarship to pursue his PhD studies in the United Kingdom (UK) where he completed his PhD in Process Integration at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology. He is a member of various international scientific committees and a Fellow for the Academy of Sciences of South Africa (ASSAf), Academy of Engineering of SA, Fellow of the Institute of Chemical Engineers, UK, Fellow for African Academy of Sciences (AAS) and Fellow for South African Academy of Engineers. He is both a registered Professional Engineer with ECSA and Chartered Engineer with the Engineering Council (UK).

He has received numerous awards for his research including the Zdenek Burianec Memorial Award (Italy, 2005). He is three times a recipient of the National Science and Technology Forum Award (2006, 2011 and 2016) and twice a recipient of the National Research Foundation President’s Award (2007 and 2008). In 2009, he won the prestigious S2A3 British Association Medal (Silver) and in 2010 was awarded the South African Institution of Chemical Engineers Bill Neal-May Gold Medal. He also received the AU-TWAS Award in Basic Sciences, Technology and Innovation (2012) and ORSSA Category III Award. Recently (2019), Majozi was awarded the National Order of Mapungubwe in Bronze by President Cyril Ramaphosa. Order of Mapungubwe

Majozi is author and co-author of more than 300 scientific publications, including the following books: Batch Chemical Process Integration published by Springer in January 2010, Synthesis, Design and Resources Optimization, Understanding Batch Chemical Processes and Water Management, which were published by CRC Press/Taylor and Francis in 2015, 2017 and 2018 respectively. He is the former Chairman of the CSIR, the largest public sector research institution in Africa.

Dr Marco Lotz (Pr. Eng)

Dr Marco Lotz holds a bachelor’s degree in engineering (chemical), a master’s degree in artificial intelligence and machine learning, a PhD in engineering management and an MBA. His PhD focused on the project management and risk management of greenhouse gas reduction projects. Marco started his career in 2006 and consulted with a wide variety of industries, including steel and cement manufacturing and precious metal mining and processing, where he was involved in numerous carbon reduction projects. The carbon projects covered the complete spectrum of carbon activities, including carbon footprinting, carbon disclosure projects, carbon-neutral endeavours and revenue-generating carbon reduction projects. These projects also included water- and energy-related matters. Marco spent 12 years at Nedbank as the Group Sustainability Carbon Specialist. He joined a Swiss-based foundation in 2022 as Chief Portfolio Officer for carbon mitigation assets and joined Carbon Disclosure SA as the full-time Chief Sustainability Officer in October 2023. He also acts as a contributor for various well-known carbon publications and as an external review expert for selected academic and other publications.