Prof. Bonex Wakufwa Mwakikunga,
1DST/CSIR National Centre for Nano-Structured Materials, 1-Meiring Naude Road, Brummeria, PO Box 395, Pretoria, South Africa,
2Physics Department, Tshwane University of Technology, PO Box 680, Pretoria, South Africa
Professor Bonex Mwakikunga is Professor Extraordinaire of Physics, Tshwane University of Technology, Pretoria, South Africa. His current position is Chief Researcher at the DST/CSIR Centre for Nanostructured and Advanced Materials (CeNAM), Pretoria, South Africa. He obtained his MSc and PhD in Physics from the University of the Witwatersrand to continue to the Doctor of Philosophy in Physics; the doctoral degree was completed in 2010.
He also embarked on postdoctoral fellowship at the CSIR’s National Laser Centre in 2010 and was contracted as a permanent employee after postdoctoral fellowship in 2013 at the then CSIR/DST National Centre for Nano-Structured Materials (NCNSM) as a Senior Researcher rising through ranks of Principal Researcher I and Principal Researcher II to Chief Researcher level at present.
He has so far published more than 100 papers in refereed journals, more than 100 conferences and conference proceedings, 5 granted patents and 4 pending patents and one product (the Diabetes Breath Analysing Glucometer) transferred to industry i.e. Kiara Health Pty Ltd. He has graduated more than 8 PhD students, about 13 Masters students and a number of postdoctoral fellows and interns. He has since achieved a number of awards and accolades including the Excellence in Innovation Award received at The Future Education Summit 2018 in Johannesburg, South Africa
Title of Plenary Lecture
NANO-FIELD EFFECT TRANSISTOR WITH NEW GEOMETRY FOR GAS AND BREATH ANALYSIS APPLICATIONS
Prof. Christopher A. Brown, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA 01609, United States
Profesor Christopher Brown co-founded the International Conference on Surface Metrology at WPI. Brown first proposed principles for surface metrology in a keynote when the conference at the Natural History Museum in Hamburg in 2014. ICSM later merged with Met and Props, an older conference.
He has published over a hundred and fifty papers on surface metrology, Suh’s Axiomatic Design, manufacturing, and sports engineering. He has patents with many of his students on characterizing surface textures, friction testing, and sports equipment. His algorithms for topographic analyses are used worldwide in science and engineering research. He teaches WPI on-line grad courses on Surface Metrology and on Axiomatic Design several times a year, works on national and international standards for surface metrology, and provides tutorials for industry and conferences.
He founded WPI’s Surface Metrology Lab in 1991. With students he developed and patented area-scale analysis to calculate relative areas, another multiscale geometric characterization. He provided an experimental demonstration of discrete interaction in adhesion collaborating with EMPA, a Swiss lab. WPI’s lab currently has a Mahr stylus instrument, and a Sensofar S neox combined confocal, interferometric and focus variation measuring microscope, thanks to the kind generosity of their manufacturers. In collaborations around the world WPI measured and analyzed food, teeth, dinosaur footprints, archaeological artifacts, pavements, skin replicas, cutting tools, baseballs, skis, paper, and many kinds of additive surfaces. Area-scale software, developed at WPI and distributed around the world, was sold to Digital Surf in France who sells their own version of area-scale analysis and supplies WPI with their leading software.
Title of Plenary Lecture
“MULTISCALE METROLOGY OF TOPOGRAPHIES FOR SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING”
