Dr Tshifhiwa Masikhwa was born and grew up in Limpopo province (Venda), South Africa, where she received her primary and high school education. She has Bachelor of Science from University of Venda, Honours and Master’s degrees in physics from University of Western Cape, South Africa. Her desire to study physics let her to pursue her doctoral degree in physics in University of Pretoria, South Africa. It was during her PhD studies that she developed her interest in materials synthesis and characterisation. In her PhD thesis titled Synthesis and characterization of Co-based hydroxides and metal disulphides with various forms of carbon for supercapacitor applications, she looked at the synthesise of cobalt-based hydroxides and transition metal disulphides composites with carbon materials such as graphene foam and activated carbon by a facile and environmentally friendly hydrothermal technique for energy storage application. Dr Masikhwa continued with this work even after her PhD studies as a postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Pretoria.
Dr Masikhwa has published eight articles as the 1st author and co-authored more than thirty in international accredited scientific journals. Some of the work published was done through collaboration with other African universities: Dr Mohamed Guerioune, Badji Mokhtar University of Annaba, Annaba in Algeria. She is a well-established materials scientist with the h-index of 10 from ISI web of knowledge and has 256 citations for her work. She has presented her work at various national and international conferences including 60th Annual Conference of the South African Institute of Physics (SAIP) in Port Elizabeth. (South Africa) (2015), 3rd Edition Nanotech Dubai 2016 Conference and Exhibition in Dubai, 5th International Conference on Advanced Capacitors (ICAC 2016) at OTSU PRINCE HOTEL CONVENTION HALL "OUMI" in Japan, 2016 world Conference on carbon in the Pennsylvania State University (United States of America) (2016), the Global Nanotechnology Congress and Expo in Dubai (2016) , the South African Raman workshop STIAS in Stellenbosch (2017) and the 2018 Tech Connect World Innovation Conference & Expo at the Anaheim Convention Center, Anaheim in California (United States of America).
Dr Masikhwa, because of her excellent record on material science was recruited as a senior scientist at The South African Nuclear Energy Corporation SOC Limited (Necsa). Her research area includes molecular modelling and the development and characterization of fluoro-chemicals and optimized cathode materials for energy storage application.
