Scientific Ambassador

The office of internationally renowned neuroscientist Mary Bartlett Bunge, Ph.D., is filled with diplomas and awards, some heralding her pioneering work in spinal cord repair. Her newest certificate—from Mala Mala—isn’t displayed yet, but she’ll gladly show it off and divulge the related tale.

Mala Mala, it turns out, isn’t a university or prestigious body of scientists. It’s the game reserve the Miller School of Medicine professor toured and photographed abundantly while on a recent trip to South Africa.

But as much as Bunge looked forward to the up-close encounters with giraffes, lions, and leopards, she delayed the safari sojourn for her primary purpose on the continent—to serve among a delegation of women scientists participating in the People to People Ambassador Program founded by the late President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The visit to post-apartheid South Africa was to learn about the country’s technological innovations and science education.

“It was very interesting and very educational. I found South Africa a very exciting place,” says Bunge, professor of cell biology and anatomy, neurological surgery, neurology, and the Christine E. Lynn Distinguished Professor of Neuroscience at The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis.

Over nine days, Bunge and ten other distinguished U.S. women scientists met with the Association of South African Women in Science and Engineering, various researchers and professors in Johannesburg and Cape Town, and toured several facilities, including the GreenHouse People’s Environmental Centre, iThemba Labs, and the LEAP Academy, the only privately funded math, science, and technology school in South Africa. Bunge and two other visiting scientists were so impressed by the academy that they formed the Women in Science Endowment Fund to raise money for the school.

Spiritually Awakening Journey

Glenda Hutson, M.D., had always wanted to see Africa. For years she had visions of stepping onto the Motherland, meeting people, eating exotic food, and absorbing the rich culture.

But even before Hutson, an assistant clinical professor of family medicine and community health at the Miller School, left for South Africa last spring, she felt the long-awaited trip was also going to be spiritually awakening.

The trip organizers, Supreme Esteem, a South Florida-based motivational company, encouraged participants to help raise funds for an orphanage in Nyanga Township, a poor Cape Town neighborhood. The group headed to South Africa with a $10,000 check for the Emasithandane Children’s Project, the three-room group home for youngsters whose parents were either too ill to care for them or had died from tuberculosis or the AIDS pandemic.

“There were about 30-something children. Some of them just went there to eat and then ended up living there,” says Hutson. “The culture is one where they take care of their own.”

Hutson, her son Noah, and the rest of the Miami group also visited Cape Town’s Philani Outreach Programme, which supports children at risk of malnourishment, neglect, HIV/AIDS, and other maladies; the mothers are taught trades. “I said this trip was going to be about enjoyment, but you start to think differently when you see the need for health care, when you see so many people with TB and HIV,” says Hutson, who also spent some time on a safari, saw Victoria Falls, and toured a museum in Zambia. Now, back home, she’s written to Philani and is hoping to return as a volunteer physician.