Our team
Professor Judith Sealy
Judith Sealy holds the South African Research Chair in Stable Isotopes, Archaeology and Palaeoenvironmental Studies, based in the Department of Archaeology at UCT. She also holds overall academic responsibility for the Stable Light Isotope Laboratory, used by researchers from a range of disciplines at UCT and other universities nationally and internationally. Sealy’s research uses isotopes to answer questions about the diet and economic base of human societies, from the emergence of modern humans to the development of hunter-gatherer, herder and farmer societies in southern Africa, and the start of of European colonization. Sealy holds or has held editorial positions with a number of journals. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa and of the University of Cape Town.
Dr Vincent Hare
Vincent Hare is an Earth scientist whose research interests span Cenozoic palaeoclimatology, palaeoenvironments, novel dating methods, past climate change, and the carbon cycle. His special research interest is the application of stable isotope geochemistry to understanding changes in ancient atmospheres, to better understand fossil and archaeological plants, and to refine predictions of future climate change. He holds degrees in both Physics and Archaeological Sciences from the University of Cape Town and Oxford (MSc, DPhil), where he was Clarendon Scholar. Hare is currently a member of the American Geophysical Union and the European Geophysical Union, Secretary of the Southern African Society for Quaternary Research, and Past Global Changes (PAGES) Early Career Representative for Africa.
Dr Julie Luyt
Julie Luyt obtained her PhD from the University of Cape Town. Her interests lie in the effects of environmental and climatic variables on stable carbon, nitrogen and oxygen isotopic ratios of fauna. Studies of contemporary fauna provide a baseline for the interpretation of analyses of archaeological and fossil animals. Her focus is on the winter rainfall zone in the southwestern part of Africa, where reconstruction of palaeoclimates and palaeoenvironments help to contextualize important archaeological sites that record evidence of early modern humans.
Prof Chris Harris (affiliated, from Department of Geological Sciences)
Chris Harris is a geologist and geochemist and is Professor of Mineralogy and Geology. His research interest lies in stable isotopes in igneous rocks and hydrological systems, economic geology. He runs the high temperature geochemistry facility in Geology that has a number of extraction lines for the measurement of stable isotope ratios of O, C, and H in rock (silicates and carbonates), mineral and water samples.
Students currently based in our lab
Learn more about the students currently working within our lab, and see list of our past students here.
PhDs
Patricia Groenewald
Bone collagen turnover rates in modern humans and their application to archaeology and forensics.
Nandi Masemula
A study of traditional agricultural practices in southern Africa: combining isotope and IKS approaches.
MScs
Drake Yarian
Optimisation of tunable infrared laser direct absorption spectroscopy (TILDAS) for triple oxygen isotope measurements in biomineral carbonates.
Hope Chakanetsa
Stable isotopic study of humans from the Greater Cape Town area.
Malefeu Lethuba
Stable isotopic study of fauna from Mmabolela.
Retired staff
Ian Newton
Dr Ian Newton has been an integral part of the lab for over 30 years, until his retirement in 2020. He started work as a technician, before obtaining his PhD in Botany from the University of the Western Cape. Newton has decades of knowledge about the inner workings of IRMS instrumentation, elemental analysis, as well as a brilliant memory of past samples and scholars.
John Lanham
John Lanham was for many years the Principal Scientific Officer in charge of the mass spectrometers and other equipment in the Stable Light Isotope Laboratory. From his appointment in 1981 until his retirement in 2018, he was the mainstay of the lab, building and repairing gas separation lines and other equipment and guiding users as to the best approaches for their needs. He continues to advise us when necessary.
Nik van der Merwe
Nikolaas van der Merwe is Emeritus Professor of Natural History in the Science Faculty at UCT. Nik is a forensic scientist who applies techniques from the natural sciences to the solution of archaeological problems. As a PhD student at Yale, he was a pioneer in the radiocarbon dating of iron alloys. At UCT, he founded the Stable Light Isotope Laboratory, where he pioneered stable isotope techniques to study the diets of prehistoric people by analysing their skeletons. With UCT students and colleagues, he applied these techniques in dietary studies of mammal-like reptiles of 200 million years ago in the Karoo, early hominins of 2 million years ago in South Africa and Tanzania, and contemporary wildlife in our National Parks.