Dr. Zvidzai,

Joined KIST as a lecturer in February 2009 and got promoted to a Senior Lecturer in August 2009. He is currently the Acting Head of Department, Chemistry Department, and as well as a Senior Lecturer. He lectures biochemistry courses to undergraduate students.

He initially obtained his first degree in BSc Honours Biochemistry at the University of Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe in 1991, and then proceeded to MPhil that was upgraded to DPhil in 1997. Then he obtained a PhD in Biotechnology at the University of Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe in 2004. He got engaged on a sandwich PhD programme at University of Lund, Sweden on biotechnology research for 1½ years. During his PhD study he published 4 scientific papers from the research work of his PhD programme. He then obtained a Postgraduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (Kigali Institute of Education, Rwanda) in 2009.

Before joining KIST he was previously employed as a lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe, from April 2004 – January 2009. Then, he offered academic expertise to other university and had research collaborations with institutes that included Zimbabwe Open University, Bindura University of Science and Education and Sirdc (Zimbabwe).

He has supervised several MSc and undergraduate students’ projects. He has attended, organized and participated in several international and regional workshops, conferences and symposiums as well as conducted Training Workshops. Contributed towards 2010 Migration for Development in Africa (IOM) Project on Establishment of Training Workshops and Postgraduate Masters Programme at KIST on Instrumentation for Environmental and Biochemical Analysis.

His research interests are on fermentation biotechnology and microbial physiology, primarily focussing on medium design from food wastes material and enzymes production by thermophilic microorganisms from hot springs.