It has been just over 30 years of service for this engineering trailblazer. From her start as a training engineering technician in 1980s, Prof. Lize Theron has come a long way in a male-dominated industry.

For several years she was the only female lecturer and the first person to do it with a PhD in the Department of Civil Engineering at the Central University of Technology, Free State. If this does not set her apart, then nothing does.

Today she is just one of a number of women in the faculty – a good sign for the institution and the sector.

She is also a conduit for postgraduate students wanting to follow her path, having supervised a total of 15 students at varying levels of qualification.

Notably, she is the leader of the Soil Mechanics Research Group, which assesses or investigates foundation problems, especially in RDP houses, due to heaving clays in the Free State. It is for this research project that for three years in a row, Prof. Theron received the J.E. Jennings Award from the Geotechnical Division of the South African Institution of Civil Engineering between 2017 and 2019. A feat achieved by no one else.

“What a few people know about me is that I was one of the first group of students to enrol for the Civil Engineering Diploma at the then Technikon Free State. I was also part of the first group to obtain my diploma and national higher dip. After I joined CUT, I was first to obtain a MTech, as well the first lecturer with a PhD, only female lecturer in the Department of Civil Engineering for about 20 years,” she says.

But this is not her highest honours; the awards she has received over the years are the actual accolades of her contribution to the industry.

Caption

In March 2018, Prof. Theron (promoter) congratulated her student, Dr Phillip Robert Stott (aged 74 at the time), during the graduation ceremony. He was the first D.Eng Civil Engineering student at CUT.