Makaiko Chithambo is a professor of physics and head of the physics department at Rhodes University in South Africa, the immediate past-President of the South African Institute of Physics and a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa. He earned his PhD from the University of Edinburgh and his MPhil from the University of Sussex. Prof. Chithambo’s research interests are in the study of point-defects in materials using luminescence methods, with special focus on time-resolved optical stimulation techniques. He has published widely in this area and has long standing interest in thermoluminescence, thermoluminescence spectra and radioluminescence.