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30 December 2019 | Story Thabo Kessah | Photo Thabo Kessah
Gavin Dollman
Gavin Dollman is involved in virtual prospecting for fossils using a drone.

Gavin Dollman is one of the young researchers selected for the international research programme funded through the US-SA Higher Education Network. This prestigious programme is aimed at giving PhD candidates and their supervisors the opportunity to regularly travel to the USA and spend time at participating US universities where their co-promoters will be based.

“The University Staff Doctoral Programme (USDP) has allowed me to bring my idea of collaborative science to fruition. It’s an exciting opportunity,” Dollman said.

Dollman added that his PhD studies would focus on the machine and deep learning for prospecting for palaeontology. He is studying with the Appalachian State University. Other participating universities are Montana and Colorado State.

He has also had the privilege to work alongside a team of Geologists and Paleontologists from the universities of Birmingham, Zurich and Oxford in a project under the auspices of the University of the Witwatersrand’s Evolution Studies Institute (ESI) on a site in rural Eastern Cape.

“My role within this massive project is to perform a detailed survey of the sites and the surrounding area for later analysis. I used a drone known as the DJI Phantom 3 Pro with which I took hundreds of pictures that were later put together to create a detailed map,” he said.

“The maps allowed for virtual prospecting by the team and will in the long term serve as the basis for a predictive fossil model for the area.”

Dollman is a lecturer in the Department of Computer Science and Informatics on the Qwaqwa Campus.

News Archive

UFS staff to present ten papers at two international conferences
2009-06-24

 
Leaving for Greece and Brazil are, from the left, front: Prof. Liezel Lues, Prof. Hendri Kroukamp, Ms Lebohang Mothae, Prof. Moses Sindane; back: Mr Lyndon du Plessis, Prof. Koos Bekker, Mr Nyawo Gumede and Mr Peter Molekane.
Photo: Leonie Bolleurs 


 

Eight staff members from the Department of Public Management at the University of the Free State (UFS) will present ten papers in total at two conferences in July and August this year. They are the International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences in Athens, Greece and the conference of the International Association of Schools and Institutes of Administration (IASIA) in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. The papers focus on amongst others the new political leadership in South Africa: Implications for sustainable local governance (by Mr Lyndon du Plessis), Closing the skills gap through research: The role of institutions of higher learning (by Prof. Hendri Kroukamp), and South African municipalities under the administration of the provincial government: Can it promote good local governance and sustainable development by Ms Lebohang Mothae.
 

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