Tshilidzi Marwala is the Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of Johannesburg with effect from 1 January 2018. He was previously the Deputy Vice Chancellor for Research and Internationalisation as well as the Dean of Engineering at the University of Johannesburg, a Professor of Electrical Engineering, the Carl and Emily Fuchs Chair of Systems and Control Engineering as well as the SARChI Chair of Systems Engineering at the University of the Witwatersrand.
He holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering (Magna Cum Laude) from Case Western Reserve University, a Master of Engineering from the University of Pretoria, a PhD in Engineering from the University of Cambridge, completed an Advanced Management Program at Columbia University and a Program for Leadership Development at Harvard Business School.
He was a post-doctoral research associate at the Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine. He has supervised 47 masters and 23 PhD students to completion and has published over 300 technical papers and 12 books. One of the books he co-authored on modelling interstate conflict has been translated into Chinese by the National Defense Industry Press.
He is a fellow of TWAS, The World Academy of Sciences and African Academy of Sciences as well as and a distinguished member of the Association for Computing Machinery. His work and opinion have appeared in publications such as New Scientist, Time Magazine and The Economist.