Teaching & mentorship

Designing curricula, workshops, and supervision pathways that grow the next generation of radio astronomers.

Teaching philosophy

Jack blends research-driven content with hands-on data experience. He has more than eight years of lecturing and five years of assessment design, guiding students from first-year laboratories to advanced interferometry courses. His modules integrate observational planning, calibration practice, and open-source tooling so graduates are SKA-ready.

Course creation & delivery

  • Interferometry 101 (2022–24) — founded a postgraduate short course for Gauteng-based students covering radio interferometry fundamentals aligned with South Africa’s astronomy strategy.
  • Observational Astronomy (PHY 300) (2021–24) — re-designed the University of Pretoria’s third-year course with 40 lectures, eight workshops, and telescope practicums.
  • Radio Astronomy Honours course (2019–21) — developed 12 two-hour lectures and practicals introducing single-dish and interferometric techniques.
  • Observational Astronomy teaching assistant, University of Groningen — supported optical observing practicals using the 1 m telescope.

Capacity-building workshops

  • Leads DARA data reduction Unit 4 workshops in Zambia and Botswana; materials now form the official VLBI CASA guide for NRAO.
  • Delivers lectures at European Radio Interferometry School (2019, 2022, 2024) and CASA-VLBI workshops on calibration and wide-field imaging.
  • Invited speaker on postgraduate wellbeing (PSANA seminar) and early-career skill-building across SKA partner countries.

Student supervision

Doctoral researchers

  • Mercy Mooketsi-Kobe — AGN evolution with wide-field VLBI (co-supervisor, 2024–present).
  • Celestin Herbé-George — Feedback in high-resolution VLBI surveys (co-supervisor, 2023–present).
  • Kelvin Wandia — Deep VLBI of faint cosmic radio sources (co-supervisor, 2022–present).
  • Ann Njeri — High-resolution studies of faint radio sources (co-supervisor, 2018–2022).

Masters & honours

  • Katelyn Jordaan — VLBI receivers and proto-planetary disks (2024–present).
  • Sibongumusa Wiseman — Star-formation and supernovae in Messier 82 (2023–2025).
  • Titan Harth — Calibration advances for faint supermassive black holes (2022–2023).
  • Jayde Bhana — Sub-kpc jets in high-redshift galaxies (2022–2023).
  • Llewellyn Coetzer — Beam-mapping to capture true telescope sensitivity (2023–2025).
  • Anneke van der Dussen — Binary SMBH candidate in GOODS-N (2022–present).
  • Thephilus Matsepane — Mapping faint VLBI radio emission across the unseen Universe (2021–2024).
  • Kelvin Wandia — Wide-field VLBI SETI searches (co-supervisor, 2021–2022).
  • Zane Lentz — Serendipitous supernova candidate analysis in GOODS-N (2021).

Jack has guided eight postgraduate projects to completion and continues to mentor early-career researchers across Africa and the UK.

Outreach & student support

Beyond formal teaching, Jack champions inclusive science communication: Sci-Enza events in Pretoria, UK secondary-school workshops on university applications, and primary-school sessions through the Out of this World project. He founded the Dr Jack Radcliffe Award for Physics to recognise top-performing students at Sir John Talbot’s Technology College.