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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

Professor lectures class – from his closet!
2013-03-05

 

Prof Vernon Louw recording his lessons in his ‘studio’
Photo: Supplied
05 March 2013

A professor, and lecturer, at the University of the Free State (UFS) nowadays gives ‘class’ in his sleep and from within his walk-in closet.

Prof Vernon Louw from the Department of Internal Medicine at the Faculty of Health Sciences recently began to make video recordings in which he presents his lessons in his discipline of Internal Medicine and Haematology.

In the mean time, due to the lack of a studio, he does his recordings in his walk-in closet where it is soundproof.

“I started the videos as a personal initiative, since there is great potential to create a completely integrated platform from where the students can watch the videos in their own time. It also provides us with more time to work interactively with our students in the class, since they already watched the videos on their own or can perhaps watch it later.”

The videos, which are viewable on Youtube under the name ‘Vernon Louw – MedEd’, are very specific and concepts are explained step by step with the objective of mastering them in ten-minute videos. There are already five videos uploaded and students from over the world can view them.

“The benefit is that now I can ‘lecture’ while I sleep. It is wonderful to notice in the mornings that another 20 viewers somewhere in the world joined.”

Prof Louw says that most of the videos are currently watched by mainly South-African, American, Indian and British viewers.

The videos can be watched on the Youtube channel: Vernon Louw MedEd

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