Professor Michael Henning
Professor Michael Henning’s research interests are in the field of combinatorics, in particularly graph theory and the concept of domination theory in graphs, a field in which he is regarded as a world leader.
Henning obtained a PhD in mathematics at the then University of Natal (now the University of KwaZulu-Natal) in 1989. He worked as a lecturer at the University of Zululand, and then at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, and did postdoctoral work at Clemson University in the US before accepting a lectureship in mathematics at the former University of Natal, where he was later appointed as full professor. After spending almost 20 years at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, he moved to the University of Johannesburg as a research professor.
Henning has made significant contributions to several fields in graph theory and hypergraph theory, and his research has shed considerable light on the area of domination theory in graphs. Using an interplay between total dominating sets in graphs and transversals in hypergraphs, he has obtained several important results on total domination in graphs that are very difficult to obtain using purely graph theoretic techniques.
He has published or co-published more than 365 peer-reviewed articles in journals such as Journal of Graph Theory, SIAM Journal of Discrete Mathematics, European Journal of Combinatorics, Discrete Mathematics, Discrete Applied Mathematics, and the Central European Journal of Mathematics as well as numerous books and book chapters.
He currently serves on the editorial board of five international mathematics journals and has refereed for several publications. He has also been a plenary speaker at numerous international conferences in various countries.
Henning’s research has garnered considerable recognition, including the Vice-Chancellor’s Award from the University of Johannesburg, the Hall Medal from the Institute of Combinatorics and its Applications, and the Meiring Naudé Medal from the Royal Society of South Africa.