FACULTY

SENIOR ACADEMIC APPOINTMENTS & PROMOTIONS

PERSONAL PROFESSOR, School of Therapeutic Sciences

Professor Pradeep Kumar

Professor Kumar is a qualified Pharmacist and obtained his PhD from the University of the Witwatersrand in 2017 for which he received the Faculty’s most Prestigious Postgraduate Degree Award. It is worth noting that he is the only pharmaceutical scientist in the world who has used molecular mechanics simulations for mechanism and performance elucidation for drug delivery systems.

Professor Kumar demonstrates excellent capacity for collaboration, however, he remains an established researcher with independent research projects and funding. The focus of Professor Kumar’s research is in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine including biomaterial design, molecular pharmaceutics, simulations and modelling, and image analysis. He has 275 publications in ISI/DNE accredited journals, with first authorship in 25 and senior authorship in 118. Additionally, 62 of these 275 published articles are external of WADDP where he has employed his expertise in molecular modelling and biomaterial design with national and international collaborators. Professor Kumar has achieved an NRF Y1-rating, a Web of Science h-Index of 32; Scopus h-Index of 34 and Google Scholar h-Index of 39. He has been invited as speaker to 21 conferences and presented at 19 conferences within the past 5 years. He has supervised 16 MSc/MPharm and 14 PhD students to completion and is currently supervising 9 Masters’ and 14 PhD students of which three Master’s students submitted in 2022 and are awaiting the examiner’s outcome.

Professor Kumar has won , most recently the 2021 Vice-Chancellor’s Innovation Award (jointly), Wits’ Friedel Sellschop Research Award, the ASRT Young African Researcher Award and was named as one of the Mail & Guardian’s Top 200 Young South Africans in 2018.

He is ranked among Top 2% scientists in the world, and has served effectively at Departmental level on internal committees and coordination roles in the department. At Faculty level, he serves as a member on the Faculty Assessment Policy Review committee and the deputy Chair of the School’s Teaching and Learning committee. He serves as a member on a number of national and international committees. He is an Associate Editor for six journals and serves on the reviewer panel for 110 journals.

We congratulate Professor Kumar on his promotion to Personal Professor