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Mr Thokozani Mpanza

Position :  Lecturer 
Telephone : 035 902  6823
Email : mpanzath@unizulu.ac.za
Office :  K403, K-Block Building, KwaDlangezwa Campus

Biography:

Thokozani Mpanza is a lecturer in the Science Access Department in the Faculty of Science, Agriculture and Engineering at the University of Zululand. After obtaining a Master’s degree, the individual began working as a temporary lecturer in the Department of Science Access in 2021. Since 2022, he has been serving as a full-time lecturer in the same department, teaching Physics within the foundation programme. His research focuses on the synthesis and characterization of metal oxide and nanocomposite semiconductor materials for gas sensing and air quality monitoring applications. This work has been published in accredited journals and conference proceedings. Notably, they received the Best Research Paper Award at the International Conference on Applied Research and Engineering (ICARAE 2022). In addition to their teaching and research, they have also mentored and supervised Honours and Master’s level student projects.

 Lecture ‘s  the following modules:

  • Foundation Physics
  • Augmented classical mechanics and properties of matter
  • Augmented electromagnetism and nuclear physics

Qualifications:
BSc Physics and mathematics, BSc honours in Physics (material science), MSc in Physics (material science) and currently pursuing my PhD degree in Physics at UNIZULU. All the qualifications were obtained at UNIZULU.

Research interests: 

Thokozani Mpanza is currently doing his PhD research in the field of materials science in Physics. His current research interest is based on the synthesis and characterization of metal oxides and  nano-composites semiconductor materials, for use in the gas sensing applications for air quality monitoring. His research also focuses on photocatalysis using semiconductor materials. He also do research in Physics education where he look at different ways on how first year foundation students and learners at matric level can learn and better understand different concepts in Physics. His past research was based on renewable energy where he was using synthesized multilayered metal oxide semiconductor materials as solar absorbers to harness solar energy which can be used to generate heat and electricity. He has supervised students projects at honours and master’s level. He has published research papers in accredited peer-reviewed journals and in conference proceedings.

Professional membership:

  • Member of South African Institute of Physics (MSAIP)