In the world of geology, pressure creates diamonds. For the Rhodes University Department of Geology, a different kind of pressure exists. It is the pressure of being the smallest department of its kind in the country. Yet, this pressure has created a legacy of excellence.

In a quiet corner of Nairobi, a young girl once sat before her father’s old computer, determined to figure out how people got inside the television. When she finally managed to play a movie with sound but no picture, she was thrilled. The screen stayed black, but it didn't matter. She had made something work. It was a spark of curiosity that would, years later, carry Dr Lexy Andati across galaxies.

Professor Warren Potts has been appointed the Oppenheimer Chair in Environmental Justice for Africa’s Coastal and Inland Fisheries. The Chair has been established through the Benjamin Raymond Oppenheimer (BRO) Trust facilitated by Oppenheimer Generations Research and Conservation (OGRC).

The Universe is not silent, and apart from what we observe with our eyes, much of what it says arrives as faint radio whispers that we are able to listen to if we tune into the right frequency. South Africa’s MeerKAT telescope has become one of the world’s finest listeners, revealing structures in deep space that were simply invisible to previous instruments. At the centre of this effort is the MeerKAT Galaxy Clusters Legacy Survey (MGCLS), a programme led by the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO).