Prof Zeblon Zenzele Vilakazi is the Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of the Witwatersrand. He joined Wits University as Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research and Postgraduate Affairs in 2014. His previous appointments include Group Executive for Research and Development at the Nuclear Energy Corporation of South Africa (NECSA) in 2011, while also serving as the Director of iThemba LABS – a position he has held since January 2007. He also holds an Honorary Professorship in the Department of Physics at the University of Cape Town (UCT).
Vilakazi has served as a chairman of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Standing Advisory Committee on Nuclear Applications from 2009 to 2011. He is a member of the Programme Advisory Committee for Nuclear Physics at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Russia and a member of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics Working Group for Nuclear Physics. In 2010, he was nominated by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader and is a Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences. He has more than 300 refereed articles in Nuclear and High Energy Physics and is a regular invitee for talks and presentations at leading international conferences and seminars.