Academic Profile

Mamaila Joyce Mogolane, affectionately known as Joy, is a qualified Speech-Language Pathologist and Audiologist with a keen research focus on pragmatics, language development, linguistics, African languages and cultures, and culturally, contextually, and linguistically appropriate assessment and management in Speech-Language Pathology. She completed her undergraduate studies at Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University with an excellent academic record, earning multiple prestigious awards including the P De V Pienaar Award for Best Overall Final-Year Student in Speech-Language Pathology, the SASHLA Award for Best Clinical Student in Speech-Language Pathology, Best Academic Student in Speech-Language Pathology, the AB Clemons Award for Best Research Project, and Best Research Student. Joy pursued her master’s degree at the University of the Witwatersrand, graduating with distinction under the Nurturing Emerging Scholarship Programme (NESP). She is currently a doctoral student at the same institution, focusing her PhD research on holistic language development within the Pedi culture, with an emphasis on sociocultural African perspectives. Her master’s research, which explored verbal and non-verbal language use in the Pedi culture, resulted in her authoring two scholarly articles—one published August 2025, and another currently under review. As an emerging scholar, she presented her work at a CPD-accredited symposium co-hosted by the University of Fort Hare and the University of Pretoria. She has also submitted abstracts to two upcoming conferences: the University of Fort Hare’s Research Week of Excellence and the 2025 ENT-SASLHA Congress. In addition, Joy is actively involved in collaborative research on the Sepedi language with colleagues from the University of Pretoria and Stellenbosch University. In her academic role as a NESP lecturer, she teaches second- and third-year modules on child language and developmental disorders, and language, learning and literacy disorders. She also supervises third-year clinical practice in the fluency, voice, and child language and developmental disorders clinics, and serves as a research supervisor for fourth-year students. With her strong commitment to culturally and linguistically appropriate clinical practice and research, Joy is an emerging scholar poised to make significant contributions to Speech-Language Pathology and African language and cultural studies.