Lydia Makhubu

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Lydia Phindile Makhubu (born July 1, 1937 in the Usuthu Mission, Luyengo ) is a chemist from Eswatini who researched the effects of medicinal plants in traditional medicine in her home country. She held numerous academic posts and was particularly committed to promoting African women scientists.

Life

Lydia Makhubu was born on July 1, 1937 in Swaziland. Her father was a teacher who trained as a medical technician in South Africa . After his return he worked in various health centers, so that Lydia Makhubu grew up surrounded by doctors and developed an early interest in medicine.

Lydia Makhubu graduated from Pius XII College in Basutoland (now Lesotho) in 1963 with a bachelor's degree in chemistry and mathematics, took a master's degree at the University of Alberta in Canada and received her doctorate in medicinal chemistry from the University of Toronto in 1973 . She was the first woman to graduate from Swaziland and was among the earliest black graduates from Canadian universities. One of her main areas of work was research into the effects of medicinal plants.

After completing her doctorate, Makhubu went back to her home country and took a position at the University of Botswana and Swaziland , where she stayed and pursued an academic career. In 1979 she became Senior Lecturer , and a year later she received a professorship. During this time she shifted her research interest to work on plants used by traditional healers, which she collected around the university and studied in her laboratory. Due to a lack of science funding in Swaziland and neighboring African countries, she founded the Royal Swaziland Society of Science and Technology in 1977 , which she also chaired in the following decades. The society supports individual scientists and runs popular science radio broadcasts.

From 1988 to 2003, Makhubu was Vice President (Vice Chancellor) of the University of Swaziland . From 1993 she was the first female president of the then Third World Organization for Women in Science until she resigned from the chair in 2005 for reasons of age. No other African woman held a similar academic position during this period. In 2002 she helped found the private Women's University in Africa in Marondera , Zimbabwe , and became its first female chancellor . She was also a member of various councils, such as the Medical Research Council of the World Health Organization (WHO).

Lydia Makhubu is married and has two children.

plant

Makhubu dedicated her work to promoting science education in Africa and women scientists from third world countries . The Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD), which she co-founded in 1989, works to eliminate disadvantages that make scientific work more difficult for women in the third world. The organization promotes the work of women in science and technology and makes the research of these women more visible at conferences by awarding travel grants.

The work Makhubus on pokeweed contributed to knowledge about combating a parasite in which schistosomiasis transfers.

Fonts

  • The effect of glucocorticoids and analogues on the rat thymus . Dissertation, University of Toronto, 1973
  • (with RP Adams, RM Parkhurst and L. Wolde-Yohannes): Phytolacca dodecandra (Phytolaccacea) in Africa. Geographical variation in Chemistry. Submitted for publication to Biochemical Systematics and Ecology.
  • A Chemical Investigation of the Medicinal Plants in Swaziland. Royal Swaziland Society of Science and Technology, Journal 1, 3, 1978, pp. 147ff.
  • Women and the Scientific Professions in Africa. the Case of Swaziland. Report written for the African Training and Research Center for Women. 1989.
  • Traditional Medicine: Swaziland
  • Witchcraft or science . University College of Swaziland, Kwaluseni 1982
  • Traditional medicine and healing in Swaziland . University of Swaziland Research Center, Luyengo, Swaziland 2009
  • The African university in the twenty-first century . International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Ibadan 1998
  • The traditional healer . University of Botswana and Swaziland, Kwaluseni, Swaziland 1978
  • Tinkhundla system of governance . 2004
  • Contribution to: Women leading from strength: a forum organized by the AAAS sub-Saharan Africa program, Washington, DC, May 18, 1993 . American Association for the Advancement of Science , Washington, DC 1993

Awards and honorary degrees

Web links

literature

  • Lisa Yount: Twentieth-Century Women Scientists , New York: Facts on File, 1996, pp. 86-93.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h Lydia Phindile Makhubu, in: Elizabeth H. Oakes: International Encyclopedia of Women Scientists. Facts on File, New York 2002, pp. 235-236. ISBN 0-8160-4381-7 .
  2. ↑ Lisa Yount: A to Z of Women in Science and Math , 2nd Edition, New York: Facts on File, 2008, pp. 187–188.
personal data
SURNAME Makhubu, Lydia
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Makhubu, Lydia Phindile
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swaziland chemist
DATE OF BIRTH July 1, 1937
PLACE OF BIRTH Usuthu Mission , Luyengo