Desmond Klenam, PhD

Desmond Klenam is an Associate Professor of Sustainable Metallurgy and Materials Science and Co-Director of the Next Frontiers in Advanced Materials Laboratory (NFAML) in the School of Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering at the University of the Witwatersrand. His research focuses on the design, manufacture and performance of metallic materials for a more circular and resource-efficient future, spanning circular alloy design and impurity-tolerant metallurgy, scrap-to-materials transformation and low-carbon processing, and data-driven sustainable materials engineering. By integrating physical metallurgy, advanced characterisation, computational thermodynamics, modelling and materials informatics, he develops durable, high-performance alloys for structural, energy, health and multifunctional applications. This work is unified by a materials–manufacturing–mechanisms nexus and a simple philosophy: make better materials, better make materials, and make materials better.

Klenam’s academic and professional career extends across Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States. He is a Research Fellow with the Soboyejo Research Laboratory at SUNY Polytechnic Institute and a Principal Investigator at Academic City University in Ghana, and has held visiting appointments at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and the University of Oxford through the Africa Oxford Initiative. Earlier, he spent three years with Hatch Advisory, where his team received the 2021 Global Operational Excellence Award. He holds PhD and MSc degrees from Wits and a BSc in Materials Engineering from KNUST. His broader mission is to develop researchers, build globally connected materials programmes and strengthen Africa’s capacity to shape the future of metallurgy and materials science.