OWSD Zimbabwe National Chapter Presents "Personal Investment for Dynamic Impact in STEM", a WhatsApp talk by Tonderai Ruwa

“Ten to fifteen years from now, people, not only in Kenya but in the African continent, will switch to magnetic refrigeration”

In today’s scientific environment, in which most PhD scientists concentrate on a single specific discipline, I might shift toward a more systemic view to approach the challenge in infectious diseases.

I wanted to do applied physics, not theoretical physics… I really wanted to use all of the knowledge that I acquired at university to explain our environment.

“Am very proud to say that I am encouraging other Cameroonian female scientists to apply for the OWSD fellowship programme and some of them have obtained the grant."

The OWSD award helped me not only to become the researcher I am today, but also to become a leader in research.

My dear girls in science: be strong, inquisitive, curious, assertive, resilient, and focused. Go for gold!

All this has broadened my knowledge for this domain of science, gave me an open mind and also allowed me to learn many things.

I have to think of something that can help us, that we can use based on resources that we have. The lack of things is the biggest inspiration in my life. I want to help my country.

I owe ‘what’, ‘who’ and ‘where’ I am in my career and professional practice today to OWSD because without the PHD Fellowship, all my achievements today would have been nothing but bleak.

I found my niche, and I have not looked back.

I wanted to show women that it was possible that when you do agricultural sciences, you can go on and do more for your career development.

Due to the war in Yemen, I had stopped studying for two years. This opportunity gave me the chance to complete my postgraduate studies.

If we do research, in addition to establishing connections with other researchers, we must also communicate and do a lot of outreach in order to share our science with the community.

My position is that we should acknowledge what we are lacking of, so that we can keep working.

After my postdoc, I will return to Syria and work to achieve my big dream, which is to establish a research center.

By creating links between food research and industry, she hopes to enhance food security both in Ghana and in Africa as a whole.

What has surprised me is the way technology is emerging and affecting the current state of research. We are encountering a fourth industrial revolution that entails advances in computing power, quantum computing and artificial intelligence, which has already been shown to alter the way we conduct research.

The main problem in radiotherapy is that most cancer cells are resistant to radiation.

I’ve been working on reptile and amphibian biodiversity for 10 years, and I know that there are still new species that need to be described.