Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items
Previous Archive
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

Health care in South Africa has a long way to go
2009-10-16

 
South Africa’s challenges and priorities in achieving the health millennium goals for South Africa, was the focus of a health-care symposium at the UFS Faculty of Health Sciences as part of the inaugural week of the new Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the UFS, Prof. Jonathan Jansen. The overall message was that South Africa has poor health outcomes despite good policies and relatively high health expenditure. Prof. Jansen (second from the right) said the biggest problem is the lack of service to people and the lack of respect for people. The other speakers were, from the left: Prof. Sithembiso Velapedi of the University of the Witwatersrand, and Prof. Salim Abdool-Karim of the University of KwaZulu-Natal. With them is Prof.Gert van Zyl, acting dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences.
Photo: Gerhard Louw

We use cookies to make interactions with our websites and services easy and meaningful. To better understand how they are used, read more about the UFS cookie policy. By continuing to use this site you are giving us your consent to do this.

Accept