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Sadhna Mathura: Scientist and Chemist


Name: Sadhna Mathura

Role/Occupation: Lecturer, Researcher and Academic Coordinator, School of Chemistry, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg

Country: South Africa


Sadhna Mathura is a lecturer, researcher and academic coordinator at the School of Chemistry at the University of the Witwatersrand. As a lecturer, she teaches chemistry to both undergraduate and postgraduate students. As an academic coordinator, she designs, prepares and develops course material & assessments, including teaching students how to conduct high-quality research and how to present their findings to the scientific community. And finally, as a researcher, Mathura pursues her own research interests, which focuses on understanding bilirubin chemistry as it pertains to neonatal jaundice. Jaundice in babies is potentially detrimental to brain development as bilirubin is neurotoxic. Her work addresses the need for better diagnostic methods.


As a child, Mathura annoyed everyone with her questions. This behaviour prompted a relative to suggest that she should be a scientist considering the amount of questions she asks. Mathura didn’t know what ‘science’ was, but to an eight year old girl, the prospect of being paid to ask questions sounded brilliant! She began her ‘research’ on where and how she could do this for a living with the help of an Encyclopaedia, which she refers to as the ‘Google of the 80s’ and found out all about science and the different STEM fields.


Mathura completed matric at Tongaat Secondary in Kwa-Zulu Natal. After having saved enough money, she was able to send her applications to the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal, where she completed her undergraduate degree, followed by her Honours and Masters degrees, specialising in Genetics (with Forestry) and Chemistry. Subsequently, Mathura moved to Johannesburg to pursue a Doctorate in Bioinorganic Chemistry at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits). Mathura was ultimately awarded the prestigious Claude Leon Fellowship to undertake postdoctoral research at Wits where she started to develop her current research interests.


“I get to ask questions and be curious about the world around me every single day. I then get to teach other people how to be curious and ask questions. Why wouldn’t I want to get out of bed in the morning!?” says an ecstatic Mathura as she jokes about operating her household kitchen as a laboratory as well. “I’m doing what I love, so it’s not a “job”. It’s a space where I can both derive and add value,” she adds.

When she embarked on her PhD, she was the only female in the lab for the first couple of years; with time this has fortunately changed and the lab has many female science graduates and researchers. Mathura believes that, “It’s one thing to demand the support of an institution to raise the status of Women in Science, but it’s another thing when Women in Science actually support each other’s professional development.” She elaborates by citing a recent campus Women in Science event, which was eye opening and enriching in terms of meeting many women from different disciplines and learning from them, she states, “we need more of this.”


Mathura has observed that many women, herself included have a tendency to shy away from owning their achievements; possibly because it might seem more appropriate if someone else asserts their achievements. Her advice to young women is to “celebrate your achievements… We need to look inward for validation, not outward. If you can’t own your achievements, then you can’t own your failures. If you can’t own your failures, then how can you grow and become better?”


With regards to her opinion about the future of STEM in Africa, Mathura feels that “our people are fantastic at taking adversity and from it, creating opportunities... Africa as a continent has always been the land of opportunity.” She emphasises that academia is at a very interesting turning point at the moment as there is “this buzz around ‘Decolonisation of curricula’ and ‘Africanisation of curricula” and she is interested to see how it unfolds.


Work- life balance is important to Mathura as she feels it makes her a better scientist and so she is strongly committed to maintaining it, her strategy involves trying “to balance the ‘left brain’ with some ‘right brain’ pursuits to fuel [her] creativity such as writing poetry, playing an instrument, painting etc.”


Interestingly, Mathura shies away from having role models. She points out that she has two main reasons for this decision, “firstly, it’s easy to be disappointed by human fallibility… role models are human beings and human beings make mistakes... it’s hard to separate their mistakes from the reasons you looked up to them in the first place… Secondly, it doesn’t make sense… to follow someone else if you are trying to find your feet as a leader… So, instead of role models, I have role ideas. If I see a good idea... I watch, read, learn.”


Feed your curiosity by reading more about the curious Sadhna Mathura, who couldn’t stop asking questions and subsequently found herself a STEM career to feed her curiosity.


Sadhna Mathura was interviewed by Dhruti Dheda, the founder of the African Steminist on behalf of Geeky Girl Reality. The full interview can be found here.

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