A delegation from our Department of Mathematics Sciences recently visited one of our preferred partners – Stellenbosch University in South Africa.
Prof Paul Milewski, Prof Alastair Spence and Lecturer Melina Freitag together with Clodoaldo Ragazzo, Head of Applied Mathematics at Universidade de São Paulo, also one of our preferred partners, participated in SANUM 2013, the annual meeting of South African Applied and Numerical Mathematics.
The delegation also visited the nearby African Institute for Mathematical Sciences in Muizenberg (AIMS). A centre for research and education, AIMS is a focus for mathematics talent in Africa, where only the top 50 students are chosen each year to follow a diverse masters level programme in mathematics.
Prof Paul Milewski taught at the centre a few years ago and professors from our mathematics department will be teaching there in the future. As part of our relationship with AIMS we hope to attract students to study for MSc and PhDs with the Bath / Stellenbosch partnership.
Discussions centred on how to turn the preferred partner relationship with Stellenbosch, including AIMS, into concrete interactions and also explore possibilities of working with Universidade de São Paulo providing opportunities for Portuguese speaking students from Africa. It emerged that our strongest areas for partnership are numerical analysis and fluid dynamics.
Prof Paul Milewski: “These are really exciting times. By establishing strong relations with Stellenbosch and AIMS we can play a significant role, both in teaching and recruiting some of the best mathematics students from Africa.”
To find out more about our relationships with global preferred partners visit Colin Grant’s blog.