Team

Senior Team

Andrew Forbes

Distinguished Professor

Andrew has at various times found himself as teacher, janitor, secretary, receptionist, web-master, systems engineer, sales rep, manager, director, and sometimes a scientist.  He is presently a Distinguished Professor within the School of Physics at the U. Witwatersrand (South Africa) where in 2015 he established a new laboratory for Structured Light. Andrew is a founding member of the Photonics Initiative of South Africa and South Africa’s Quantum Roadmap.  He is a Fellow of SPIE, the OSA, the SAIP, and an elected member of the Academy of Science of South Africa.  He holds an A-rating by the South African NRF, 3 honorary professorships, is editor-in-chief of the IoP’s Journal of Optics and sits on the editorial board of three other international journals. Andrew has won several awards, including the NSTF national award for his contributions to photonics in South Africa, the Georg Forster prize from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for outstanding contributions to photonics, and the SAIP Gold Medal, the highest award for physics in South Africa, making him the youngest winner to date.  Andrew spends his time having fun with the taxpayers’ money, exploring structured light in lasers as well as classical and quantum optics. 

Angela Dudley

Senior Lecturer

After receiving her MSc. from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Angela joined the CSIR’s National Laser Centre on a PhD studentship in 2008. Her Ph.D. research involved measurement techniques for optical beams carrying orbital angular momentum. She received her Ph.D. in 2012 and subsequently commenced a Postdoctoral Fellowship followed by a Senior Researcher position at the CSIR. After 10 years at the CSIR, Angela joined the University of the Witwatersrand where she is currently a Senior Lecturer. Angela holds the SAIP Silver Medal for outstanding young physicists, and chairs the SPIE conference on Laser Beam Shaping. Her research interests lie in ‘shaping’ laser beams into various ‘patterns’ for applications with high-power laser sources.

Isaac Nape

Lecturer

Dr. Isaac Nape, a researcher in photonics and quantum computing. He specialises in higher-dimensional quantum information processing with structured light and delves into quantum search and optimization algorithms for solving complex physics problems. Dr. Nape is the Optica-WITS Emerging Leader Chair, leading efforts in quantum information processing. Awarded the Jubilee Silver Medal by the South African Institute of Physics (2023), named in Mail&Guardian’s top 200 young South Africans in technology and innovation and was awarded the Meiring Naudier Medal by the Royal Society of South Africa (2024), recognising him as an outstanding emerging scientist in his field. He also serves as the Wits-IBM liaison under the office of the DVC of Research and is tasked with driving quantum computing initiatives at Wits.

Paola Obando

Post-Doctoral Research Fellow

Paola completed her undergraduate studies in physics at the Universidad de Nariño in Colombia.  Afterwards, she moved to Argentina where she obtained a master’s degree in physics at Balseiro institute. To continue her education focused on quantum information and quantum open systems,  she moved to Brazil where she obtained her Ph.D. at the Federal Fluminense University (UFF).  Subsequently,  she commenced a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Brazilian Centre for Research in Physics (CBPF) before becoming a postdoctoral fellow at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, where she works in the Structured Light Laboratory. Her current research is related to structured light at the quantum regime, exploring its applications in quantum photonics, computation and communication. 

Bertus Jordaan

Button Optics R&D Scientist

Darryl Naidoo

Honorary Academic

Darryl Naidoo conducted his PhD research at the CSIR National Laser Centre based in Pretoria, South Africa. He received his PhD in March 2015 from Stellenbosch University and has subsequently taken up his current position as Senior Researcher at the CSIR National Laser Centre. His work is centred on laser beam shaping both extra and intra-cavity, mode measurement and laser resonators where his current research is geared towards high power beam shaping for use in laser enabled manufacturing processes. Darryl has been awarded one SPIE scholarship, 4 National Laser Centre awards and has received 2 CSIR Excellence Awards for ‘Best Student’ in 2012 and ‘Outstanding Contribution by a Team’ in 2014.

Students

Graduated Members

PhD

  • Nokwazi Mphuthi  (2020) The robustness of spatial modes of light for long distance free-space propagation
  • Eileen Otte (2019) Structured singular light fields *Graduated through U. Munster, Germany *Cum Laude
  • Micthell Cox (2019) Improving the resilience of free-space optical links using structured modes of light
  • Chemist Mabena (2019) Distortion correction for free-space quantum communications
  • Bienvenu Ndagano (2019) Classical and Quantum Entanglement: Applications to Quantum Communications with Structured Photons
  • Nkosi Bhebhe (2019) Creation and analysis of structured light fields for application in optical tweezers
  • Hend Sroor (2019) Higher-Order Poincaré beams from lasers

MSc

  • Nikiwe Mashaba  (2021)  A real-time turbulence simulator
  • Stirling Scholes (2020) Structuring light to improve laser brightness *Cum Laude
  • Michael de Oliviera (2020)  Quantum cryptography with structured light *Cum Laude
  • Jonathan Pinnell (2020) Controlling the orbital angular momentum spectrum of classical and quantum light *Cum Laude
  • Nyiku Makonisi (2020) Nitrogen vacancy centre in diamond and its application to quantum information processing *Cum Laude
  • Ravin Kara (2020) Digital Micro-mirror beam control *Cum Laude
  • Prince Mredlana (2019) Modal decomposition with Wigner functions
  • Bereneice Sephton (2018) Quantum walks with classically entangled light *Cum Laude
  • Mosima Kgomo (2018) Towards the development of Thulium-doped all-fibre lasers
  • Lucas Galele (2018) Long distance data transfer using spatial modes of light
  • Isaac Nape (2017) Hybrid entanglement for quantum communication *Cum Laude
  • Bigboy Madlala (2017) Designing a low cost passively Q-switched solid state laser transmitter
  • Daniel Morris (2017) Research and development of high power thulium-doped fibre lasers *Cum Laude
  • Bienvenu Ndagano (2016) Encoding information into spatial modes of light

Past Post-Doctoral Fellows

  • Najmeh Tabebordbar (2019-2020)
  • Adam Valles (2017-2018)
  • Carmelo Rosales Guzman (2015-2018)
  • Melanie McLaren (2015-2017)

Recent Visitors

  • Vladimir Venediktov– LETI St Petersburg (Russia)
  • Jan Korvink – KIT (Germany)
  • Jonathan Leach – Hariot-Watt University (Scotland)
  • Shanti Bhattacharya – IIT Madras (India)
  • Martin Lavery – University of Glasgow (Scotland)
  • Jian Wang – Huazhong University of Science and Technology (China)
  • Ben McMarron – Oregon University (USA)
  • Filippo Romanato – Padova University (Italy)

Visiting International Students

  • Hang Li (PhD Student) – Huazhong University of Science and Techology, Hubei, China
  • Yijie Shen (PhD Student) – Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
  • Amogh Manthalkar (MSc Student) – ITT Madras, India
  • Benjamin Perez-Garcia (PhD Student) – Photonics and Mathematical Optics Group, Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico
  • Ermes Toninelli (PhD Student) – University of Glasgow, Optics Group
  • Eileen Otte (PhD Student) – Institute for Applied Physics, WWU Münster, Germany
  • Jun Liu (PhD Student) – Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Multi-Dimensional Photonics Lab
  • Giacomo Sorelli (PhD Student) – University of Freiburg
  • Robert Brüning (PhD Student) – Institute of Applied Optics, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany
  • Charlotte Kyeremah (MSc Student) – University of Cape Coast, Ghana
  • Sruthy Lathika (MSc Student) – Indian Institute of Technology, India
  • Filipu Yelton Nlovu (MSc Student) – University of Fort Hare, South Africa
  • Maya Reyes (1st Year undergraduate) – Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States
  • Peter J. Williams (1st Year undergraduate) – Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States