IDIA Staff and Senior Researchers
IDIA staff, executive leadership, technical specialists, and senior researchers.
IDIA brings together executive leadership, technical specialists, administrators, scientists, visualisation developers, postdoctoral fellows, and senior researchers across the partner universities.
This page gathers the current institutional team and selected former contributors from the source overview. Final portrait and retreat images can be added in a later media pass.
IDIA Executive
| Name | Role |
|---|---|
| Prof Roger Deane | Director: IDIA |
| Prof Robert Simmonds | Associate Director, New Technologies: IDIA |
| A/Prof Sally Macfarlane | Associate Director, Outreach and Development: IDIA |
| Jeremy Smith | ilifu Operations Manager: IDIA |
| Nicky Walker | Administrative Manager: IDIA |
| Dr Lucia Marchetti | Director: UCT/IDIA VisLab |
| Prof Mattia Vaccari | eResearch Liaison IDIA, Director: eResearch UCT |
Current Staff
| Name | Role | Starting Year |
|---|---|---|
| Prof Roger Deane | IDIA Director | 2026 |
| Dr David Aikema | Senior Technical Specialist | pre-2020 |
| Jeremi-Ernst Avenant | Senior Technical Specialist | pre-2020 |
| Dr Angus Comrie | Senior Visualisation Developer | pre-2020 |
| Mike Currin | Senior Technical Specialist | pre-2020 |
| Reikantseone Diretse | Data Analyst | 2023 |
| Marcin Glowacki | IDIA Associate | 2024 |
| Lisa Hendricks | Administrator | 2022 |
| Dane Kennedy | Senior Bioinformatics Support | pre-2020 |
| Assoc Prof Sally Macfarlane | Associate Director, Development and Outreach | 2023 |
| Dr Lucia Marchetti | VisLab Director | 2024 |
| Adrianna Pińska | Visualisation Developer | pre-2020 |
| Srikrishna Sekhar | IDIA Associate | 2024 |
| Walter Silima | Data Analyst (2022-2023); Astronomy Support | 2024 |
| Prof Rob Simmonds | Associate Director, New Technology Initiatives | pre-2020 |
| Jeremy Smith | Operations Manager | pre-2020 |
| Prof Mattia Vaccari | eResearch Liaison | pre-2020 |
| Nicky Walker | Administration Manager | pre-2020 |
| Theophilus Matsepane | Senior Systems Administrator | 2025 |
| Narusha Isaacs | IDIA / BRICS data analyst | 2025 |
| Michaela van Zyl | Visualisation Software Engineer | 2025 |
Former Staff
| Name | Role | Duration |
|---|---|---|
| Prof Patrick Woudt | IDIA Director | 2023-2025 |
| Kechil Kirkham | Project Manager | 2018-2025 |
| Annastine Aranjo | IDIA Secretary | until 2020 |
| Dr Joe Bochenek | Data Scientist | until 2022 |
| Tinus Cloete | Senior Systems Administrator | 2023-2024 |
| Dr Jordan Collier | Senior Astronomy Support | until 2024 |
| Dr Bradley Frank | Associate Director, Astronomy Operations | until 2023 |
| Okkert Havenga | Data Analyst | 2022-2023 |
| Dr Jasper Horrell | Associate Director, Operations | until 2020 |
| Verena Ras | Administrator (UWC) | pre-2020 |
| Eslam Hussein | Data Scientist | until 2024 |
| Herbert Nguruwe | User Support (UWC) | pre-2020 |
| Prof Thomas Jarrett | Professor Astronomy; VisLab co-director | until 2024 |
| Assoc. Prof. Michelle Cluver | Associate Director, Development and Outreach | pre-2020 |
| Oarabile Moloko | Astronomy Support | 2021-2022 |
| Robin Hall | Senior Systems Administrator (UWC) | pre-2020 |
| Assoc Prof Carolina Ödman | Associate Director, Development and Outreach | until 2022 |
| Oarabile Hope Moloko | Junior Astronomy Support (UCT) | pre-2020 |
| Prof Russ Taylor | Director | until 2023 |
| Mfundo Zwane | Development and Outreach Administrator | until 2021 |
Senior Researchers
| Name | Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Assoc Prof Sarah Blyth | UCT |
| Prof Claude Carignan | UCT |
| Dr Christopher Cleghorn | UP |
| Prof Roger Deane | Wits / IDIA |
| Prof Renée Kraan-Korteweg | UCT |
| Assoc Prof Michelle Kuttel | UCT |
| Assoc Prof Michelle Lochner | UWC |
| Dr Edward Elson | UWC |
| Prof Lerothodi Leeuw | UP |
| Dr Lucia Marchetti | UCT |
| Prof Russ Taylor | UWC/UCT |
| Prof Mario Santos | UWC |
| Prof Rob Simmonds | UCT |
| Prof Mattia Vaccari | UCT |
| Prof Patrick Woudt | UCT |
| Dr Jack Radcliffe | UK SRC / UoM |
| Dr Kshitij Thorat | UP |
| Prof Thijs Van der Hulst | Kapteyn Institute |
| Prof Neal Katz | UMASS |
| Prof DJ Pisano | UCT / SARAO-SARChI |
Postdoctoral Fellows
| Name | University | Start Year |
|---|---|---|
| Dr Luigi Barchiesi | UCT | 2023 |
| Dr Sushant Dutta | UCT | 2024 |
| Dr Suman Chatterjee | UWC | 2024 |
Former Postdoctoral Fellows
| Name | University | Period | Current position |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dr Kshitij Thorat | UP | 2020 | Staff at UP |
| Dr Fangxia An | UWC | 2020 | Associate Professor at YNAO / CAS |
| Dr Marcin Glowacki | UWC | 2020 | Postdoctoral Fellow (UK), IDIA associate |
| Dr Francesco Cavallaro | UCT | 2020 | Staff at INAF/Catania (Italy) |
| Dr Srikrishna Sekhar | UCT | 2020-2023 | Associate Scientist at NRAO, IDIA associate |
| Dr Matt Prescott | UWC | 2020-2022 | |
| Dr Amadeus Wild | UWC | 2023 | |
| Dr Tamirat Gogo | UWC | 2023 | |
| Dr Alex Sivitilli | UCT | 2023-2024 | Postdoctoral Fellow (UK) |
| Dr Sthabile Kolwa | UCT | Pre-2020 | |
| Dr Luke Chamandy | UCT/UWC | Pre-2020 | |
| Dr Jonathan Zwart | UWC | Pre-2020 | |
| Dr Zara Randriamanakoto | UWC | Pre-2020 | |
| A/Prof Sally Macfarlane | UCT | Pre-2020 | IDIA Assoc. Director: Development & Outreach |
| Dr Iniyan Natarajan | UP | 2020 – 2022 | Harvard CfA / SAO |
| Dr Saurabh Paul | UWC | 2018 – 2021 | The University of Manchester |
In Loving Memory
IDIA remembers Prof Thomas Jarrett and Prof Carolina Ödman-Govender for their leadership, generosity, and lasting contributions to the institute, the Visualisation Laboratory, development and outreach, and the wider astronomy community.
Professor Tom Jarrett
The entire IDIA community was shocked and saddened by the sudden passing of Prof Thomas (Tom) Jarrett on 1 July 2024. Tom was instrumental in the development of IDIA’s Visualisation Lab and led developments in immersive visual analytics of complex large data sets, from DataToDome initiatives to the development of iDaVIE at IDIA.
Professor Carolina Ödman-Govender
It is with deep sadness that we mark the passing of Carolina Ödman-Govender on 15 November 2022. Carolina was the Associate Director of IDIA for Development and Outreach and a dear friend to all at IDIA. Her outstanding contributions were recognised nationally and internationally, and her legacy remains deeply felt across the institute.
The obituary for Carolina can be seen here.
An asteroid is named after Carolina