Gledhill Irvy Marian Archibald

Gledhill is an honorary adjunct professor of flow physics at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, and an applied computational physicist with 30 years expertise in aerodynamics. She worked on magnetic plasma confinement at the University of California, Los Angeles, and at Stanford University (USA), where she developed a massively parallel plasma simulation for space shuttle physics. Back to South Africa, she moved into the field of computational fluid dynamics at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). She actively sought collaborations, providing physical insight across a wide range of scientific and engineering disciplines. Her work has included methane explosions in coal mines, molecular modelling for the treatment of HIV and tuberculosis, and the quantification of storm damage to ocean breakwaters. She has a strong commitment to gender equity in science and to improving the work environment for both women and men. She is vice-president of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics, serves on the Council of the Academy of Science of South Africa, and recently served as vice-president of the Network of African Science Academies.