Mount Kenya University has hired a South African academic to be its next Vice Chancellor.
Prof Deogratius Jaganyi will take over from Professor Stanley Waudo who has served the institution as Vice Chancellor for 12 years until his contract ended now.
Prof Jaganyi was a lecturer at Kwa Zulu-Natal University in South Africa. The University administration stated that he had the best qualifications of all the 51 candidates who applied for the position.
The University had shortlisted 17 applicants but interviewed only 7 candidates and settled on Professor Jaganyi.
Below is Professor Jaganyi’s bio as extracted from his LinkedIn profile:
Professor Jaganyi is a physical chemist, with a BSc ( Honours) and Masters degrees from the University of Nairobi, Kenya, DIC and a PhD from Imperial College, University of London, UK.
He joined UKZN (then the University of Natal) as a lecturer in 1993, becoming an Associate Professor in 2007 and Full Professor in 2010. Following the merger of the Universities of Natal and Durban-Westville to form UKZN, he was appointed Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Science & Agriculture in 2005 and became Dean in 2009. On the dissolution of the Faculties in 2011, he was appointed as College Dean of Research and from 2012 served as the DVC and Head of the College of Agriculture, Engineering and Science. He joined University of Rwanda in 2018 as the Director of Research and Innovation.
Professor Jaganyi is an internationally known chemical kineticist, with research interest in the area of mechanisms of the substitution reactions of the transition metal complexes that have biological relevance to cancer treatment. His other interest includes applied research in environment and industrial chemistry.
He has supervised more than40 postgraduate honours students and 45 MSc, PhD and Postdoctoral Scholars. He has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed scientific papers published in highly ranked ISI international journals including Nature and over 86 international conference proceedings.
Professor Jaganyi is a recipient of numerous awards and honours which includes Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Fellowship, Germany, the NRF/DIT THRIP Award for “Outstanding Black Research/Project Leader” in 2007, South Africa and in 2010 University of KwaZulu-Natal Distinguished Teachers Award. He also holds a C research rating from the National Research Foundation (NRF) in South Africa etc.
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