Prof Anton Basson is currently the Chairman of the Department, as well as head of the Design and Mechatronics Division. In 1987 he was registered as a Professional Engineer (no. 870466) with the Engineering Council of South Africa. On 30 October 1995 he was evaluated as a Y-category researcher by FRD, and since June 2000 the NRF evaluated him as a C(3)-category researcher.
He did his PhD on numerical simulation of steady three-dimensional flows in axial turbomachinery bladerows. His current fields of speciality are in mechanical design, design for manufacturing and design methodology. He is currently doing research in the areas of distributed design, cost estimation during design, plastic processing machine development and aids for the design of mechatronic machines.