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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

Top ‘political analyst’ for Spring graduation
2013-09-15

Graduands and parents can prepare themselves for an exciting Spring graduation, with a top ‘political analyst’ and a young woman who sees and sings with her soul, as guest speakers.

Chester Missing, South Africa’s top puppet political commentator, and Shenley Pretorius, a blind singer, will address the more or less 650 graduands on Thursday 19 September 2013. 

A total of 544 bachelors and honours degrees, as well as 106 diplomas and certificates, will be awarded during the graduation ceremony in the Callie Human Centre at the Bloemfontein Campus. The qualifications will be awarded at two ceremonies.

Chester Missing, a presenter on the television programme, Late Nite News with Loyiso Gola, will be 'accompanied' by Conrad Koch, one of South Africa’s most in demand comedy talents.

The 15-year-old Shenley touched people’s hearts nationwide when she appeared on Noot vir Noot, the SABC2 music programme, earlier this year. The teenager is a Grade 9 learner at Prinshof School for the Visually Impaired in Pretoria.

The programme for the different ceremonies is as follows:

  • 09:30 The Faculty of the Humanities awards 160 qualifications, The Faculty of Education 71 qualifications, the Faculty of Law 27 qualifications and the Faculty of Theology 2 qualifications.
  • 14:30 The Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences awards 137 qualifications, the Faculty of Health Sciences 98 qualifications and the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences 155 qualifications.

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