Professor Jonathan Blackledge is Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) and oversees the provision of post-graduate and post-doctoral research activities, research grants and contracts and the commercialization of research projects throughout (UKZN).

He holds a Bachelor of Science Honours degree in Physics from Imperial College, London University, a Diploma of Imperial College in Plasma Physics, a Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics from King’s College, London University and a Doctorate in Mathematics from Jyvaskyla University, Finland.

After undertaking his post-doctoral research at King’s College, London, he was appointed Lecturer and then Senior Lecturer at Cranfield University where he was Head of the Applied Mathematics and Computing Group in the School of Mechanical Engineering from 1988-1994 and developed the post-graduate teaching and research portfolio of the School in Computer Aided Engineering. He was then appointed full Professor of Applied Mathematics and Head of the Department of Mathematical Sciences at De Montfort University (1994-2003) where he focused on the post-graduate and research provisions of the Department. From 2003-2009 he was Visiting Professor at Loughborough University where he co-founded the Advanced Signal Processing Research Group and has been Professor Extraordinaire in Computer Science at the University of Western Cape since 2005.

In 2008 Professor Blackledge was appointed to the prestigious Science Foundation Ireland Stokes Professorship at Dublin Institute of Technology where he is an Honorary Professor and focused on Innovation and Entrepreneurship leading the commercialization of a range of research projects and the spin-out of a number of companies in both the UK and Ireland for which he was awarded Researcher of the Year in 2010 and 2011. During this time he was also appointed Distinguished Professor at the Centre for Advanced Studies, Warsaw University of Technology, Poland, for his research contributions to Cryptography.
Professor Blackledge has collaborated with a range of teaching and research institutes and universities world-wide throughout his academic career having taught, supervised and undertaken collaborative research projects in countries that include France, Germany, Poland, Canada, USA, Russia, Ukraine, India and China. He has authored and co-authored over 250 research papers, 9 research books and 6 teaching books in the fields of physics, mathematics and engineering, has filed 6 Patents, developed 18 Technologies to License and has been principal supervisor to over 200 completed MSc/MPhil and 56 PhD theses.

Professor Blackledge holds Fellowships with a number of UK Institutes and Societies including the Institute of Physics, the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications, the British Computer Society, the Institution of Engineering and Technology, the Institute of Mechanical Engineers, the Royal Statistical Society, the Energy Institute and the Institute of Leadership and Management. In 2007 he was made a Fellow of the City and Guilds London Institute for his contributions to Vocational Education (from 2002-2007) and in the same year was made a Freeman of the City of London.
The current research interests of Professor Blackledge include Cryptology (Cryptography and Steganography), mathematical modelling of complex systems and the applications of Fractal Geometry and Fractional Dynamics in science, engineering and economics.