UKZN PhD graduate follows in sister’s footsteps

Eight years after her sister received a doctorate from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Zakithi Mkhize on Monday graduated with a PhD (medicine) majoring in virology at the same university.

The 2024 Autumn Graduation took place at the Westville campus in Durban on Monday.

In 2016, “The Mercury” reported that Zamambo Mkhize was the youngest graduate to get her PhD at the age of 31 while in the same week her sister Zakithi graduated with a BSc degree in genetics and microbiology.

Now aged 30, Zakithi, who is currently in the medical communications field in Johannesburg, has followed in her older sister’s academic footsteps.

Speaking to “The Mercury” moments before she stepped onto the podium to receive her PhD, Zakithi said that after years of studying it felt “surreal” to finally reach this milestone.

“I've reaped what I've sown. I’ve been working hard for all these years and now finally the day has come,” she said.

She said her academic journey was not without obstacles as the Covid-19 pandemic impacted her studies in 2020 when she started her PhD and she also had challenges with funding for her research, which focused on an HIV cure and understanding mechanisms of latency within the virus.

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Regarding her research, Zakithi said there was a lot of lab work doing experiments and she had to pick herself up after each failure.

“But I was so lucky because I had the support of my family,” she said.

Zakithi said her parents always encouraged both her and her sister to study.

“We have been fortunate that my parents have always encouraged us to study further. They never put pressure on us to work as soon as we had our first degree,” she said, adding that her sister, as a PhD holder, showed her that it could be done.

Zamambo, who is an associate professor at UCT, said she was proud of her sister for working hard for so long.

“She was very steadfast, focused and disciplined.”

Zamambo said they would not have achieved their academic goals without the support and encouragement of their parents.

“This is because of them. They were always phoning us, supporting us, especially as young black girls, they had steadfast belief in us,” she said.

The siblings’ parents, Wonderful and Zethu Mkhize, said they were very proud of both their daughters. Wonderful said he was at a loss for words to describe what their academic achievements mean to him, as someone who did not go to school and whose parents also did not attend school.

“When I was young, I said to myself that I wanted to have children that would love school.”

Zethu said she was over the moon to see her second daughter get her PhD.

“They did so well, I didn’t expect them to be doctors, I just wanted them to get educated, but the little one would not have done this PhD if it wasn’t for her big sister,” she said.

The Mercury