University of South Africa PhD student awarded the 2022 L’Oréal-UNESCO for Women in Science sub-Saharan Africa Young Talents Award

On 1 December 2022, Bezalem Eshetu Yirdaw, a PhD student in the Department of Statistics at Unisa’s College of Science, Engineering and Technology (CSET), was announced as one of the top 20 scientists awarded the 2022 L’Oréal-UNESCO for Women in Science sub-Saharan Africa Young Talents Award.

The scientists selected are working on a wide range of research projects that are committed to improving the lives of millions of people across Africa and the world.

The L’Oréal-UNESCO’s for Women in Science national and regional Young Talents programmes provide nearly 250 endowments each year in more than 110 countries. These awards provide Young Talents with specific support for the advancement of their careers.

The top 20 winners were selected for their scientific excellence among 425 applications received, and were celebrated and honoured on 1 December 2022 at the awards ceremony in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. Bezalem is currently working on her PhD research project entitled “Modelling child morbidity using a multi-level Bayesian network”. Her research project is supervised by Prof Legesse Kassa Debusho from the Department of Statistics at CSET.