Upasana Gitanjali Singh

Senior Lecturer, Information Systems and Technology, University of KwaZulu-Natal
Dr Upasana Singh is a senior lecturer in the Discipline of Information Systems and Technology at the University of KwaZulu Natal, Westville Campus, in Durban South Africa. She has a keen interest in Technology in Education and Sustainable IT practices. Her PhD was on electronic assessment for which she developed and evaluated an online interactive tool to evaluate e-assessment systems, named e-SEAT. She successfully implemented the first formative e-assessment in the School of MIG at UKZN in 2014. In 2014, she received 2 research awards, one from the NRF and the other from UKZN, CLMS Teaching and Learning Unit. She served as panel reviewer for the NRFs Joint Collaboration applications in 2015 and 2016.

Joint academic collaboration is one of her fortes having secured 5 MoUs with international universities. This has provided her with the platform to share her knowledge as invited guest speaker to local and international conferences in South Africa, India and Mauritius. She expanded this collaboration interest by volunteering as local conference co-ordinator for the 3rd IEEE ICACCE conference, held in Durban in 2016; the joint multidisciplinary e-MIG Conferences in Mauritius 2017 & 2019; a committee member for the AAE Summer School in France 2017; Program Chair for IFCTN held by Chandigarh University, in partnership with UKZN in 2018, and the IEEE icABCD conferences in Durban 2018 & 2019. In 2017 she was selected to participate in the “Joint Expertise Programme” at Chemnitz Technical University in Germany; and selected to represent UKZN at MoodleMoot Australia in Sydney.

Her research profile includes 9 Journal articles and 31 conference papers focusing on topics related to Technology in Education, e-Assessment, AI, Digital Marketing and Sustainability. As a young, emerging academic, her supervision profile includes over 20 Hons, 3 Masters and 2 PhD students.

She also has a keen interest in joint curriculum development with International Higher Education Institutions. In 2018 she was nominated on a 2 year training program in “Teaching Advancement in Universities” (TAU). She graduated as a TAU fellow in 2019.

Dr Singh is an advocate of women empowerment and has organised 2 successful events on Women in STEM at high schools in Durban. These events have attracted highly acclaimed female academics and graduates to share their experiences and motivate over 200 female high school learners to adopt technology-based careers. Through her efforts she has secured bursaries for some of these female learners to pursue a career in Engineering.

She is an active volunteer for the IEEE, South Africa, and has been recognised for her contribution to the organization in 2018.