provide solutions to problems in the medical and biological fields, eg cochlear implants to enable deaf people to hear by utilising electrical stimulation of hearing nerve fibres.
Education
1959 personeel en finalejaarstudente in Elektrotegniese en Meganiese Ingenieurswese. Voor: Mnr P van Zwieten, prof FG Heymann, prof CA du Toit, prof WG Leeman, dr JP Botha
Middel: Mnr L van Biljon, mnr K Adendorff, dr GT van Rooyen, mnr N Wessels, mnr WG Lewis, mnr T van Niekerk Agter: JG Heyl, mnr DF van der Merwe, A Bredenkamp, FW Guldenpfenning, JD Muller
• CEM: The Centre for Electromagnetism was established in 1996. CEM houses the only compact antenna electromagnetism measurement facility (established in 1989) in southern Africa, the largest in the southern Hemisphere. CEM obtained SANAS accreditation in 1997. • CeTEIS: The Centre for Telecommunications Engineering in an Information Society was established in 1997. CeTEIS is a Telkom Centre of Excellence, sponsored by Telkom and Bytes Universal Systems. • EEDSM Hub: The South African National Hub for the Postgraduate Programme in Energy Efficiency and Demand Side Management was established in 2008 under the directorship of Prof Xiaohua Xia. Since 2010 the Hub has produced 125 postgraduates, 134 journal articles, 227 conference papers and two books.
The academics and support staff in the Department take their education brief very seriously and provide lecturing, mentoring, laboratory guidance and administrative support. An awareness of engineering professionalism and esprit de corps is supported by the example set by the lecturers as professional engineers and world-class researchers. Close contact with industry, government and other institutions through contract research and consulting by lecturers ensure that when graduates leave the University with a degree in engineering they are ‘complete’ candidate engineers. We currently have around 1 200 undergraduate students, 30 lecturers and 32 assistant lecturers. Outstanding lecture halls in the new Engineering 3 Building make lecturing to large groups very effective. The more than 30 general and specialist laboratories in the Department ensure a complete process of learning and experiencing electrical, electronic and computer engineering and its derivatives, from undergraduate level to PhD. We strive for excellence in education. Prof Tania Hanekom (Function Head: Undergraduate Education) received the University of Pretoria Education Innovation Award for 2015, as well as the prestigious CHE/HELTASA National Excellence in Teaching Award for 2015.
The future of the Department
• Bioengineering: The application of engineering methods and technology to
The tremendous growth in popularity and progress made the world over in respect of electrical (energy), electronic (automation, control and telecommunications) and computer engineering (artificial intelligence), in all applications from communications, transport, food production, medicine, energy, mining and manufacture and entertainment, will only accelerate. As a Department we will have to grow more engineers in these fields for South Africa and the world. We have to cope with an exponential rate of innovation in all these technologies and will have to continuously re-invent ourselves.
Prof Johan Joubert (Acting Head)
• EXXARO Energy Efficiency Chair, held by Prof Xiaohua Xia. • SENTECH Chair: The Sentech Chair in Broadband Wireless Multimedia Communication is held by Prof Sunil Maharaj.
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60 YEARS OF ENGINEERING EDUCATION