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| Dr Brenda Namumba, PhD |
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| Brenda |
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| Brenda as a physics student at the University of Zambia |
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| Much has changed now |
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| She uses a combination of telescopes to study the universe |
By VICTOR KALALANDA, December 19, 2020*
RESIGNED to her pecuniary disadvantage, then 19-year-old Brenda Namumba and her best friend lived like a prisoner duo bundled in a little cell.
The year was
2005, at the beleaguered University of Zambia Great East Road Campus. For a
penniless student studying hard to improve her lot in life and
that of her family, that wretched existence was not the only challenge.
There was
also some mordant humour waiting for Brenda when she attended her early morning
classes. It came from a male lecturer who, ungainly in appearance, would
like to tell his packed audience that “by the end of this semester half of you have to go home to sleep.” They laughed uproariously and apprehensively.
But Brenda
never went home, clearly because her grit and determination would not let that
happen.
The molten
magma of her fortitude and hard work erupted at long last in 2019, triggering
public awe and admiration, when while clad in a grandiose red gown and black
hat she graduated from the prestigious University of Cape Town in South Africa
to become Zambia’s first woman physicist and astrophysicist at PhD level.
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| Blazing a trail |
Until this
time Zambia had no woman specialising as a doctoral physicist, and neither did
it have a woman expert in astrophysics or blue skies research, which Brenda
qualifies as “the study of the universe and everything beyond our planet. It’s
important because we’re part of the universe and the universe is part of us; we
seek to understand our co-existence.”
As an
observational radio astronomer, she uses cutting edge telescope technology,
from South Africa to Spain, to study emissions from gas giant planets, blasts
from the hearts of galaxies or signals from a dying star—and by so doing,
Brenda helps us understand the world and its universe better, as well as what
the future holds.
Today when
she travels the world and ebulliently presents a paper to a highly educated
audience or lectures students on the subject of astronomy and physics, the
onlooker might think Brenda’s accomplished feats thus far fell into a
particular seamless order.
But her
equally left-handed best friend, Muleba, helps put the historic career Brenda
is now carving out into context.
I’ve known
her from 2005 when we used to be together at university. What strikes me about
her is her humble background and as a person she is very humble but she never
allowed that to limit her, says the 35-year-old Muleba.
Born in 1986
to an itinerant electrician father and a business-oriented mother, Brenda
belonged to a low-income household of six children and had a cloistered
upbringing that revolved around school, home chores and an indoors lifestyle
shared with visiting relatives, as her father travelled with the family for job
stints between Central and Lusaka Provinces.
Brenda says
she most likely ended up in physics and specifically a sexist profession like
astronomy due to the great deal of freedom to challenge status quos and do
anything in the Simumba home, and her father, John, confirms this when he says
of her daughter, “From childhood that one has been [working hard] and
adventurous. She is a lady but she was never afraid to venture into activities
of boys. She even used to play football at secondary school.”
What has
shaped me is the freedom my parents gave me at an early age to do what I
thought was right, Brenda adds.
Indeed,
after attending Matero Girls High School Brenda obtained a place at the
University of Zambia, where she qualified to study physics as one of about four
girls in a male dominated class.
For her,
choosing physics was like a matter of fate, though it did not feel quite like
it, as she notes:
When I was young I did well in sciences than other subjects,
so definitely I knew I’d do sciences but not physics because it is rare for
people to advise you to do physics compared to medicine, pharmacy or
engineering. But in second year (at University of Zambia) I decided to do
physics because I loved it.
It was at
the University of Zambia that Brenda started developed her physics talent and
the necessary scientific skills that would stand her in good stead when she
decided that astrophysics would be her chosen lifework.
An academic
conference she attended in the tourist capital Livingstone while in her fourth
year piqued her interest in astrophysics, as she states: “I got inspired when I
saw young people doing astrophysics and space science closely interacting with
different professors.”
Following
her graduation from UNZA in 2010 and after briefly teaching physics under
Zambia’s then Ministry of Education, Brenda landed a scholarship under the
National Astrophysics and Space Science Programme in South Africa.
For her
grounding in astrophysics she first completed an honours degree at the
University of Cape Town, where she subsequently returned for her PhD studies
after studying at the University of KwaZulu-Natal for her master’s.
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| Brenda with her PhD supervisor, Prof Claude Carignan |
With her
high level education, the travelling and sightseeing enthusiast uses a
combination of 64 telescopes called MeerKAT to develop her body of work as a
postdoctoral researcher attached to Rhodes University in South Africa, where
what will be the largest radio telescope, the Square kilometre Array (SKA), is
under construction.
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| Brenda in America |
Although
Zambia has never made any headlines in astronomy, Brenda is optimistic the
country will find its space in the galaxy in the near future.
Zambia is part
of the SKA, meaning that we are going to host one telescope. This in itself
will be a significant milestone for Zambia in participating in cutting edge
scientific research.
I think yes, with the positive scientific research development
we see in Zambia today and the enthusiastic young scientist we are having, I
believe Zambians will soon be part of the extensive research science community
that will send its citizens to the moon, she says
Though not
married at the time of this writing, Brenda is in a committed relationship and
her line of work heavily involves publishing her work while closely
collaborating with scientists around the world.
Such is the
story of Zambia’s first woman astrophysicist or blue-sky researcher, who
challenges the sexism of a male dominated career and at 34 years of age she is
therefore best placed to advise youths when she says, “I’d like to say to young
people that don’t think this is impossible. I want to tell you that if you work
hard anything is possible. Follow your heart desires.”
In Brenda,
no doubt, Zambia finds a versatile and solid frontrunner woman astrophysicist,
who will inspire future generations of similar scientists, especially at such a
time when there is growing interest in space research and exploration.
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| A young Brenda, long before the PhD |
*Original copy was first published in the Zambia Daily Mail
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