On a Tuesday in September, UJ Engineering lecturer Preveshin Maduray landed back in South Africa from a research trip to China. The very next day he had to teach a class – but found himself teaching rather differently than usual. For at least 45 minutes, he was ‘shouting’ at his students, he recalls.
“I was telling them them they have to do better, better for themselves, for our country, and contribute towards science and engineering. I spoke to them about what was being done at HEPS as well as what the Chinese were able to achieve.
“I believe it all comes down to mindset. We should not allow our circumstances to limit our potential. As engineers we are problem solvers and that’s the initiative we need to start taking,” he says.
Maduray and Abdool Sattar Cassim, both UJ Engineering PhD students, had spent seven days at a training camp at the HEPS synchrotron in China, from 13 to 19 September.
Seeing inside solid materials
A synchrotron is a high-energy light source, that can ‘see’ things that the eye or a microscope would not pick up. High-energy X-rays from a synchrotron can even ‘see’ inside solid metals, rocks, or fossils, without harming or cutting the sample.
China’s High Energy Photon Source (HEPS) is a fourth-generation synchrotron, offering scientists advanced AI and big-data processing. It is the first high-energy synchrotron radiation light source in China and opened to global users in the second half of 2026.
Maduray and Cassim were among four selected from Africa for the BRICS-STARS programme, supported by the Institute of High Energy Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). CAS is ranked the foremost research institution in the world, according to the Nature Index institution rankings.
They also visited the Synergetic Extreme Condition User Facility (SECUF) at the Chinese Institute of Physics, as part of BRICS-STARS.
Mind-opening facility
The camp brought the two together with students from other BRICS countries: Brazil, Russia, China, Egypt, Thailand and Ethiopia.
“I was taken aback at how vastly different our projects were, ranging from pharmaceuticals, medicine, to material science and chemistry,” says Cassim.
The other students were more versed in the methods needed for different experiments, while the UJ pair came mainly as users, with an experiment that needed synchrotron-level technology, he adds.
“I felt part of a community that was listening to me, a mere PhD student from South Africa,” he says. “People were extremely friendly and helpful.”
He arrived knowing nothing about synchrotrons and left knowing exactly what he would need to do to use the light source for different experiments, he adds.
Meanwhile, Maduray’s PhD co-supervisor Professor Charis Harley says that on his return he told her the experience had opened his mind.
“As his supervisor this is one of the best responses I could have hoped for!” she says.
So much good food
Away from the beamlines, Cassim, who eats halal, kept asking for vegan food. This made the caterers curious. The next day, they printed labels for each dish, and the ladies still pointed out which ones he could eat and translate for him. “It’s a level of attention and care I haven’t seen anywhere,” he says.
For his part, Maduray found the food ‘absolutely amazing’. “Even though I don’t eat beef and pork, the food service people showed me the chicken or mutton options – mind you all through the translator app” he recalls.
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