Recognition of Achievement Ceremony

Inside this issue:

Recognition of Achievement Ceremony

1/3

AIMSWIS mentoring event

1/3

Cosmology Group 2 updates Workshop on Machine Learning for Ecology

2

German visitor

2

Canadian Mathematical Society Award

2

Journal Club

2

Visiting Researchers

3

Student updates

3

Seminars

3

Prof. Francis Allotey

4

AIMSSEC newsletter

4

Announcements

4

AIMS South Africa acknowledged the success of its sixth group of January intake students at a special Recognition of Achievement Ceremony held on 8 November 2017 at its centre in Muizenberg. Ten students (including 9 South Africans) received their certificates and will graduate through the partner universities that they are registered at. The 10 graduates join the AIMS South Africa alumni group which brings the total number of graduates to 716 of which 34% are women from 37 different African countries, since the institute was opened in 2003. In total, 71 South Africans (including 24 women) have graduated from AIMS South Africa. The invited speaker at the event

Front row: Dr Bubacarr Bah, Ms Mmabatho Mokiti, Prof. Barry Green, Prof. Jeff Sanders and Dr Justin Munyakazi (AIMS 2004 alumnus) Back row: Ms Shané van Graan, Ms Boipelo Sihle Ncube, Mr Mulalo Netshithuthuni, Mr Thabang Doreen Lebese, Ms Noluvuyo Yumata, Mr Tasiu Yusuf Abdullahi, Mr Rendani Emmanuel Tshisikule, Mr Ndamulelo Mudau and Mr Daniel Mashishi

was Ms Mmabatho Mokiti, Founder and CEO, Mathemaniacs, who encouraged the students by stating, “Every day is a new day to conquer the world. Live a life

that is purpose-driven, there is so much you can do with a maths degree so don’t be afraid to go out and change the world.” Continued on page 3.

AIMS Women in STEM mentoring event

Panel members and participants at the event

On 18 November 2017, AIMSWIS South Africa held a mentoring event, which was a follow-up to the "Meet and Greet" event held on 9 October. The event for current AIMS South Africa women students, researchers, and alumni was organized by Dr Rejoyce GavhiMolefe, Ms Mirette Fawzy, Ms Julia Borchardt, Ms Zoe Hamel,

www.aims.ac.za

Ms Assumpta Nnakenyi, Ms Innocenter Amima and Ms Bathata Masego

and a panel discussion was chaired by Ms Masego an AIMS Master’s student.

Thirty-nine women attended the event, 19 current women students, two researchers, three tutors and 15 alumni currently doing their Master’s and PhDs at local universities. The event which consisted of talks

Ms Savannah Nuwagaba who recently defended her PhD at Stellenbosch University was a guest speaker. Continued on page 3.

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Research Centre updates Cosmology Group Updates opportunities for AIMS South Africa as it connects to the astronomy and machine learning research being undertaken in the Research Centre.

Prof. Bassett

Prof. Bruce Bassett has accepted a part time appointment to head up the data science and machine learning efforts the SKA Africa. This offers exciting

Prof. Bassett and Dr Michelle Lochner also attended the SKA Postgraduate Bursary Conference from 27 November to 1 December. They were joined by SKA students Ms Zafiirah Hosenie and Mr Olorato Mosiane both co-supervised by Prof. Bassett.

Workshop on Machine Learning for Ecology

Canadian Mathematical Society Award AIMS South Africa would like to take the opportunity to congratulate Prof. Alan Beardon on receiving the 2017 G de B. Robinson Award for his paper on Non-discrete frieze groups published in the Canadian Mathematical Bulletin. This paper deals with groups of real isometries which map the real number line to itself, with a particular focus on studying the conjugacy classes of the groups whose discrete forms correspond to the seven classic frieze groups. The results of this paper (written in an effective way to

Journal Club Workshop participants

data. The workshop covered two machine learning methodologies: tree-based methods, and neural networks. All analysis was done using R, using existing packages for treebased methods (rpart, randomForest, gbm) and neural networks (keras).

Mr Maennel

www.aims.ac.z

Mr Frithjof A Maennel, Deputy Director General, International Cooperation, Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Germany, (BMBF) visited AIMS South on 20 November. Mr Maennel was taken on a tour of the facilities and discussions about the ongoing collaboration between AIMS and the BMBF were held with Prof. Barry Green and Dr Bubacarr Bah, the German Research Chair, based at AIMS South Africa.

For more information please visit https://cms.math.ca/ MediaReleases/2017/ GdeBRobinson.html

On 15 November, Mr Kagiso Samuel Ramolotja a student at SACEMA, supervised by Dr Gaston Mazandu, presented the defence of his Master’s thesis titled: ‘Modelling human immune response dynamics to Mycobacterium Tuberculosis infection.’ On 7 November, Dr Dimbinaina Ralaivaosaona, Stellenbosch University, gave a talk titled: ‘The average distance in randomly perturbed graphs.’ On 14 November, Dr Rejoyce Gavhi-Molefe, AIMS gave a talk titled: ‘One-Parameter Interpolatory Subdivision Convergence.’

Dr Ralaivaosaona

The workshop was organised by Prof. Ian Durbach and there were 25 participants.

German visitor

make itself more accessible to the reader) will be of interest to a wide audience.

Master’s Defence

Mr Ramolotja

This 3-day workshop was held from 20-22 November 2017. The aim of the workshop was to give a practical introduction to the use of machine learning methods for classification problems in ecology. It was also aimed at ecologists doing some form of classification either manually or modelbased - in their own research work, especially those classifying images or audio/acoustic

Prof. Beardon

Dr Gavhi-Molefe

Mr Masakuna

On 21 November, Mr Félicien Jordan Masakuna, AIMS, gave a talk titled: ‘Tackling Inconsistency in Classifier Fusion.’ On 28 November, Dr Ronalda Benjamin, Stellenbosch University, gave a talk titled: ‘Connections between Fredholm Theory and Positivity in General Ordered Banach Algebras.’

Dr Benjamin

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Visiting Researchers AIMS South Africa welcomed the following visitors:  Dr Dimbinaina Ralaivaosaona, Stellenbosch University, who visited the centre from 6-7 November 2017.  Prof. Ninan Sajeeth Philip (St. Thomas College, India) and Dr Blesson George (CMS College Kottayam, India) visited the Cosmology Group from 3 to 18 November 2017. They were joined by Dr Sheelu Abraham (The InterUniversity Centre for

Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune) from 4 to 18 November. Dr Philip and Dr George’s visit form part of the Indo-SA flagship programme done in collaboration with SAAO and AIMS.  Dr Issa Karambal, an AIMS 2007 alumnus and currently affiliated to Sheridan College in Canada visited AIMS from 26 November until 2 December. His research interests include Machine Learning, Spectral Theory and Dynamical Systems amongst others.

Recognition of Achievement Ceremony continued ...

Ms Mokiti

“But never forget to give back, impart your knowledge to others so that you can live a life to leave a legacy.” For the student address,

Ms Boipelo Sihle Ncube and Ms Shané van Graan shared their experiences of their year at AIMS and noted, “At AIMS you find a dedication that you don’t find at other places.”

Student updates

Ms Ncube and Ms van Graan

AIMSWIS mentoring event continued... Prof. Gouws

The August intake completed the following courses: Algebra (Karin-Therese Howell, Stellenbosch) and Statistics (Olalekan Kazeem Obisesan, University of Ibadan). They are currently busy with Model Theory (Gareth Boxall, Stellenbosch), Quantum Mechanics (Rafael Nepomechie,

Miami) and Data Analytics (Pete Grindrod, Oxford and Jeff Sanders, AIMS). On 22 November. students also attended a lecture on Gender by Prof. Amanda Gouws (Stellenbosch University).

Seminar

On 23 November, Dr Olalekan Obisesan, University of Ibadan, presented a seminar titled: ‘Statistical Modelling in Environmetrics.’

www.aims.ac.za

She talked about” Understanding your discipline - STEM”. She noted, “Although Africa’s reality is that many are driven to specific research areas by opportunities, it is important that a strong motivation lies at the heart of any research field or problem one chooses to specialize in. Strong motivation sustains one during the challenging moments of a research career.” A highlight at the event was a panel discussion moderated by Ms Amima. The panel consisted of three AIMS alumni, Ms Eva Liliane Ujeneza, Ms Asmaa Tbaeen, and Ms Nuwagaba, as well as Ms Makinde Funmilayo Lydia (Research Master’s student), Ms Borchardt and Ms Hamel (tutors) who talked about choosing career paths, supervisors, life after AIMS, importance of giving back, opportunities for Master’s and PhD studies in South Africa, Europe and the USA and the importance of communication skills as a scientist.

During the event, Dr GavhiMolefe presented the objectives of the AIMSWIS program and launched the yearly one to one mentorship matching programme. The programme pairs an AIMS student with an AIMS alumnus or researcher for mentoring and support. The main objective is to expand the mentee’s network of mentors with other women in STEM. She also took the opportunity to present the new AIMSWIS South Africa website currently being developed by Dr Borchardt that will be launched soon. The event was followed by a lunch at AIMS South Africa where participants had the opportunity to network. Special thanks go to Stellenbosch University International Office for providing transport for participants from the university and Ms Assumpta Nnakenyi, who is the AIMSWIS liaison at Stellenbosch.

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Network News Prof. Francis Allotey

AIMS is saddened by the news of the passing of Prof. Francis Kofi Allotey on 2 November 2017. Prof Allotey was the President of AIMS Ghana and a dear friend to the AIMS Network.

“Over the years, his contributions and commitment to AIMS have been immeasurable. He was a cherished mentor to our founder, Neil Turok, and a patron of AIMS since the network's early beginnings. In addition, he was a world-renowned mathematical physicist, a founding Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences, and Ghana's first full professor of mathematics. Prof. Allotey never failed to support AIMS to overcome any challenges and capitalize on all opportunities presented to us. His mentorship, friendship and professionalism will be truly missed,” noted Mr Thierry Zomahoun, President and CEO, AIMS Global Network

PhD opportunities in Data Science: Call for applications AIMS South Africa will be hosting a year-long PhD preparatory programme for students who are either contemplating registering for or in the first year of doctoral study in Data Science. The programme will be coordinated by Dr Bubacarr Bah (AIMS) and Prof. Loyiso Nongxa (Wits). The preparatory workshop will take place from 8 – 12 January 2018 and will focus on:  Introduction to Data Science  Python Programming & HPC For further information please visit the website.

AIMSSEC Newsletter Please click on the link below to view the latest AIMSSEC newsletter. http://aimssec.ac.za/wpcontent/uploads/2017/12/ AIMSSEC-Newsletter-Issue14-November-2017.pdf

Announcements Applications for the January 2018 intake for the AIMS Master’s in Mathematical Sciences Applications are now OPEN for the AIMS structured Master’s degree in Mathematical Sciences which is awarded by the Universities of Stellenbosch, Cape Town and the Western Cape. The January intake is for students who follow the South African academic calendar and preference will be given to South African nationals. For more information and to apply please visit https:// www.aims.ac.za/en/programmes/aims-structured-masters-inmathematical-sciences/applications-january-intake

Be the solution! Provide a gift in support of empowering Africa’s youth to lead a new revolution in STEM. Harness the potential of young scientists impassioned about discovery and inspired by the promise of a new future for Africa. Your donation will assist AIMS South Africa with funding for student bursaries which cover travel, accommodation, meals, medical insurance and a monthly stipend. For more information and to donate please visit https://www.givengain.com/cause/2319/campaigns/8281/

www.aims.ac.za

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