A postgraduate student at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Dr Maqsooda Mahomed has given hope to rural communities by developing a lighting detection system which can alert communities before the storms and lighting hits.

For her honours and masters’ research, she focused on tackling challenges within the water cycle.

But for her PhD – which she started in July 2018 – the remarkable woman changed tack and found a scarce yet fascinating and crucial element to research, namely lightning.

Radio Islam spoke to Dr Maqsooda Mahomed regarding her research.