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Appropriate technologies cited as answer to Africa’s engineering woes

Visiting Professor Barrett Hezeltine

Appropriate technologies and their application in Africa have fascinated Prof. Barrett Hazeltine for much of his career. Hazeltine, who first served at AU in 1996-97, returned to the University this month as a Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Agriculture & Natural Resources.

“The interesting engineering problems in Africa have always been a pull factor for me and I have dedicated myself to finding out how local people can be empowered so that they can solve their own engineering problems,” said Hazeltine. “The application of appropriate technologies is the only way that this can be made possible, so that people on the African continent can move away from the dependency paradigm.”

Educated at Princeton University (BSc and MSc in Engineering) and the University of Michigan (PhD) in Computer Engineering), Hazeltine is Professor Emeritus in the Division of Engineering at Brown University, where he has taught since 1959.

He has travelled extensively in southern Africa and taught in Zambia, Malawi, Botswana and Zimbabwe between the mid-1970 and the mid-1990s.

During this visit, Prof. Hazeltine will be teaching courses in Food Mechanics and Irrigation Systems in the Faculty of Agriculture & Natural Resources and Operations Research in the Faculty of Management & Administration. He is accompanied by his wife of 50 years, Mary Hazeltine. Mrs. Hazeltine is assisting with instructional assignments in the Information and Communications Technology unit.