The IEEE has awarded the 2009 Female Scientist of the Year award to Professor Marlien Herselman of the Centre of Scientific and Industrial Research’s (CSIR’s) Meraka Institute.

Herselman, an adjunct professor at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University and a principal researcher who leads the Living Labs research group at the CSIR, was previoulsy named Women Researcher of the Year at Tshwane University of Technology.

In 2000, she was awarded a scholarship of the Deutsche Akademischer Austauschdienst of the International Women's University to attend a summer semester at the University of Hamburg, in the project field of information.

With a double Master’s degree and a doctorate in the use of computer games for teaching, her research focused on the use of information and communications technology for business enhancement, rural community informatics and e-health projects.

Herselman’s past projects included database administration, as well as data collection in Limpopo on malaria detection via satellite navigation systems for the ReGlan rural community hospital project. This project focused on assisting EU countries in the development of an early detection and prevention system for serious diseases.

Her expertise has also been applied to technology assessment of rural communities. This was aimed at identifying, which technologies are available and which technology adoption models are implemented by rural communities in South Africa.

She is currently busy with a National Research Foundation-funded research project on technology assessment models in rural communities in South Africa.

The IEEE awards event came just ahead of the first annual conference for Living Labs in Southern Africa Network, which took place in November.

It allows all stakeholders; government, society, industry and academia to achieve their own goals and outcomes in support of a specific community. Users and citizens become active participants in experimentation and testing during projects and not merely passive receivers of innovation. In fact, all parties stand to gain through equal partnerships in the process.

To subscribe to Engineering News's print magazine email subscriptions@creamermedia.co.za or buy now.