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30 December 2019 | Story Thabo Kessah | Photo Thabo Kessah

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

Mandela Rhodes Scholarship for Kovsie student

2011-10-25

Jaco Griessel, our Mandela Rhodes Scholarship winner
Photo: Hannes Pieterse

The Mandela Rhodes Foundation has honoured Kovsie student Jaco Griessel with a prestigious Mandela Rhodes Scholarship for 2012. This student from the Odeion School of Music is one of 23 students on the continent to receive the prestigious award this year. The scholarship is awarded to young Africans who demonstrate academic and leadership potential.

Griessel, who is currently busy with his B.Mus honours degree, is an achiever of note with many accomplishments to his name. In 2010 Griessel won the Fanie Beetge Prize for best undergraduate student in systematic music studies. A year before that he received the same prize for best undergraduate student in historical music studies. The 25-year old Griessel will continue his studies at our university next year with a master’s degree, specialising in music composition. The Kovsie student says his dream is to compose music one day. He writes anything from classical, light to jazz music.

With the scholarship, Griessel gets access to leadership development programmes and an opportunity to interact with a diverse group of fellow scholars spanning the continent and academic disciplines. The scholarship further provides for study and registration costs, study material, accommodation and a personal allowance.

Message from Sannah Mokone (One of two UFS Rhodes Scholars)
Dear Prof Jansen, let me take this opportunity to congratulate you and the UFS on Jaco Griessel's reception of the Mandela Rhodes Scholarship, wow!!! What a fantastic opportunity!

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