Professor Bhekisipho Twala is the Executive Dean of Engineering and Built Environment and Professor in Artificial Intelligence and Data Science at the Durban University of Technology, South Africa. Before then, he was the Director of the School of Engineering at the University of South Africa (UNISA) and founder of the Institute for Intelligent Systems at the University of Johannesburg (UJ). He completed his PhD in Machine Learning & Statistical Science at the Open University (United Kingdom) in 2005, and was a post-doctoral researcher at Brunel University in the United Kingdom, mainly focussing on empirical software engineering. Before then, he did his MSc in Statistics from Southampton University (United Kingdom) and a BA in Economics & Statistics at the University of Swaziland in 1992.
Prof Twala’s current research includes promoting and conducting research in Artificial Intelligence within the Big Data Analytics field and developing novel and innovative solutions to key research problems in this area. He has a world-class track record of high-quality research and scholarship as evidenced by 180 publications in internationally leading journals and conferences. He is currently an associate editor of the Information Sciences Journal, Intelligent Data Analysis Journal, Journal of Computers, International Journal of Advanced Information Science and Technology, International Journal of Big Data Intelligence, Journal of Image and Data Fusion, Journal of Information Processing Systems, and a fellow of the Royal Statistical Society. Other professional memberships include the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM); the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CIT), South Africa and a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (SMIEEE). Prof Twala is the recipient of the TW Kambule research and its outputs award, the highest honour bestowed by the South African government on outstanding scientists for up to fifteen years after the award of a PhD or equivalent.
