International Advisory Committee

IAC Key Missions

•To provide advice and recommendations on all scientific, technical and capacity-building issues during the completion of a conceptual design report for the African Light Source.
•To promote the high-level liaison and networking at national, pan-African and high-level world institutions to drive forwards a Light Source for Africa.
•To engage in incisive strategic reflections ensuring wisdom and judgement in developing the actions to be implemented by the AfLS Committees.

Dr Khotso Mokhele - Chair, IAC of the AfLS 

  • PhD (Microbiology), University of California, Davis, USA (1986), Post-Doctoral Fellowships: The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (1986-1987) and University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine (1990/91).

Current Roles:

  1. Chairperson of the Advisory Council of the African Open Science Platform
  2. Chairperson of Boards of Directors two companies listed on the Johannesburg Securities Exchange (Tiger Brands Limited and AECI)
  3. President of the Hans Merensky Foundation

Previous Relevant Roles

  1. Chancellor of the University of the Free State, South Africa (2010-2020)
  2. President of the Foundation for Research Development of South Africa (1996-1999)
  3. Founder President of the National Research Foundation of South Africa ((1999-2006)
  4. Founder President of the Academy of Science of South Africa (1996-1999)
  5. Member of the Executive Board of UNESCO, Representing South Africa (1997-2001)
  6. Vice President for Scientific Planning and Review of the International Council for Science (ICSU) (2005-2008)
  7. Chairperson of the Board of Directors of Impala Platinum Holdings (2009-2015) and Adcock Ingram (a Pharmaceutical company) (2008-2016)

Relevant experience

We just mention part of the broad experience of Dr Mhokele in research policy leadership.  Dr Mhokele was founding president of the National Research Foundation (NRF), the South African funding agency at the time of South Africa's new democracy. As President of the NRF, Dr Mhokele led the fundraising and formation of the consortium to build the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) (a 10 metre Class Optical Telescope) in Sutherland, South Africa. The success of this project provided the platform that South Africa used to launch the bid to host the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) Telescope. Dr Mhokele provided strategic leadership to the  iThemba LABS (Laboratory for Accelerator Based Sciences), one of the national research facilities managed by the NRF.

 

The IAC was launched at the  AfLS2020 Virtual Workshop on the 20th November 2020. The image below shows a screen shot of the 1st virtual meeting of the IAC on the 16 Nov 2020. It is annotated to indicate the Membership.