Personal information
Biography
Professor Meyer is an expert in the fields of material science and engineering, solar energy, bio energy, energy efficiency, energy management and smart energy systems. He obtained his PhD (Physics) at the University of Port Elizabeth in 2002 and started the same year at the University of Fort Hare where he later became head of the Department of Physics.
He was appointed as the Director of the Fort Hare Institute of Technology in 2005 where he turned FHIT into an entity with a vibrant research culture of new knowledge creation in energy related fields. Professor Meyer has now established the SolarWatt Park on the Alice campus where research is conducted on various aspects of solar photovoltaic (PV), solar thermal, heat pumps, grid-connected PV systems, biomass gasification and biogas digestion.
He received technology awards from the Department of Trade and Industry through in the categories Social Development (2007) and Technology Transfer (2012). He has also received the University of Fort Hare Vice Chancellor's Medal for Emerging Researcher (2006) in recognition of sustained research and scholarly achievements that reflect quality and excellence. He was first rated as Y2 by the NRF (2009) and upgraded to C2, effective January 2012 to December 2017. His research networks are through various national and international forums and he has also served as non-executive director on the Boards of SANEDI and DRISA. He recently served as Chair of the annual national Renewable Energy Postgraduate Energy Symposium that took place at the University of Fort Hare in September 2016 as part of the UFH centenary celebrations.
Professor Meyer has published more than 90 peer-reviewed articles, which have been cited more than a 1000 times with an H-index of 18. He has promoted 5 postdoctoral fellows, 18 doctoral and 36 masters graduates. He has fund raised more than R70 million and more recently he acquired a state-of-art first of its kind confocal Raman AFM worth more than R7.7 million. His research group is also forming part of a consortium with various other South African universities for the acquisition of a R34 million state-of-the-art, 300 kV FEG Scanning TEM.