2020 started off on a rather sombre note for the South African scientific community with the news that renowned chemist, Emeritus Professor Klaus Koch from Stellenbosch University passed away on the second day of the new year. For just over a year, Klaus had bravely battled prostate cancer for which he received aggressive treatment during the early part of 2019. Although many of us were aware of his condition, the news that he finally lost the battle, still came as a shock to most of his friends and colleagues. For many of us this has been a reality quite difficult to come to terms with. The loss of a long-standing colleague and friend at a stage of his life when he still had so much to offer, has really been tough for many to accept.
Born in 1953 in the former South West Africa, Klaus completed his schooling at one of Namibia’s prestigious academic institutions – St Paul’s College in his hometown of Windhoek. After completing high school in 1972, he reluctantly found himself being called-up for compulsory military service in the then South African defence force. After completing the mandatory year of military service, he commenced his tertiary education at the University of Cape Town by enrolling for a BSc degree majoring in chemistry and physics. He obtained his undergraduate degree cum laude, which encouraged him to firstly pursue an Honours degree in chemistry followed by a PhD degree. The latter was done under the supervision of Dr Victor Fazakerly, under whose mentorship Klaus acquired his passion for advanced nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. On completing his doctorate, Klaus was appointed to the academic staff of the then Department of Analytical Chemistry at the University of Cape Town. At that time UCT had four separate chemistry departments, clustered within the School of Chemistry. Klaus rapidly proceeded through the academic ranks at UCT and reached the level of Associate Professor in 1989. After a long career at UCT, he moved to Stellenbosch University, where he took up the chair in Analytical Chemistry in 2002. Klaus certainly came into his own as a scholar and research scientist during his years at Stellenbosch. Here he established a thriving research group as he was able to pursue many of his research goals as a completely independent researcher. For most of his career his research passion was platinum group metal (PGM) chemistry with a strong emphasis on the use of modern NMR techniques to gain insight into the coordination behaviour of these metals. It is during his time at Stellenbosch that he really emerged as a world-renowned researcher in PGM chemistry and multinuclear NMR spectroscopy. A testament to this, is the fact that he regularly received invitations to present his work at some of the most prestigious international conferences in the field. As consequence of this, he was in a position to gradually establish a wide network of international collaborators from different parts of the world. Many of these collaborators, who are renowned in their own right, became lifelong friends. His reputation as an esteemed researcher in the field of coordination chemistry, was also recognised by the wider community of coordination chemists, which led to him being approached to serve as a member of the highly influential advisory committee of the International Conference on Coordination Chemistry (ICCC). He served on this committee for over two decades, regularly making valuable contributions to ensure that this conference series is today regarded as the premier event for researchers in the field of coordination chemistry. In 2003 he was entrusted by the ICCC committee to chair the 37th version of the biennial conference, which took place in Cape Town, South Africa in 2006. This was the first and up till today, the only time that this event was hosted on the African continent. Under Klaus’s guidance, it ended up being an overwhelming success, attracting delegates from all parts of the world.
As alluded to earlier, Klaus Koch was a very successful researcher. At the time of his passing, he had published more than 130 peer-reviewed journal articles with these being collectively cited over 3000 times. His research contributions have been recognised by him receiving several awards over his long and illustrious career. Included amongst these are the Heinrich Hertz Fellowship (Nordrhein-Westfalen, FRG), the Ernest Oppenheimer Memorial Trust Travel Fellowship and the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) Fellowships to carry out sabbatical work at the technical Universities of Munich and Leipzig, Germany. He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa in 2002 and a member of the South African Academy of Sciences in 2012. In 2014 he became a Fellow of the South African Chemical Institute (SACI) and as recently as December 2019, he was once again honoured, this time by The South African Chemical Institute, by being awarded one of the organisation’s most prestigious awards – the SACI gold medal. This was a mere couple of weeks before his untimely passing.
During his time as an academic, he supervised or co-supervised over 60 postgraduate students. Many of these students have gone on to occupy senior positions in various organisations across the world. In addition to training postgraduate students, he also had the reputation of being a committed and really passionate teacher. Hundreds of undergraduate students have passed through his hands over the many years and I have no doubt that all of them have been impacted by the enthusiasm and dedication of Klaus Koch. I can attest to this, having myself been one of the first crop of students taught by Klaus at UCT during the early 1980s. He clearly made an impression on me and was one of the people who encouraged me to pursue a postgraduate degree in chemistry. Since those early years he has always come across as someone who enjoyed interacting with young people and mentoring them. His passion for developing young talent continued throughout his career and it involved not only university students but also high school learners. In the latter part of his career, he was jointly responsible for establishing one of the most successful outreach initiatives of Stellenbosch University’s Chemistry Department, known as SUNCOI. The programme aims to assist learners as well as teachers from under‐resourced schools so as to afford them the opportunity to obtain some exposure to aspects of the practical work which form part of the high school syllabus. The programme was established in collaboration with one of the younger academic staff members, Dr Rehana Malgas‐Enus for whom Klaus acted as an important mentoring figure during the initial part of her academic career. This was during the period when he served as the first executive Head of the Department of Chemistry and Polymer Science at Stellenbosch University. During his tenure, he launched some important initiatives including coordinating a crucial review of the curriculum as pertaining to the undergraduate programmes.
Everyone who had interacted with Klaus over the years, would have known him as a straight talker. He did not hesitate to speak his mind and when interacting with him, one never had any doubt what his thoughts were. He could certainly never be accused of being an indecisive person. Once an idea took a hold in his mind, he would run with it and you really had to come up with some convincing counter-arguments to persuade him otherwise. These, I guess, were the times when his passionate personality came to the fore.
Although he had officially retired by the time of his untimely death, he was still active as a researcher and in fact at the time of his passing, he was still supervising postgraduate students. His death represents a great loss, not only for Stellenbosch University but also to the wider chemistry community. He will always be remembered with respect and admiration for his contributions to South African science in general and chemistry, in particular. May his soul rest in peace.