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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

Prof. Magda Fourie leaves the UFS
2007-08-01

Prof. Magda Fourie, Vice-Rector Academic Planning at the University of the Free State (UFS), has resigned from her position and has been appointed as Vice-Rector: Learning at the University of Stellenbosch (US) as from 1 October 2007.

She has been appointed in the vacant position of Prof. Russel Botman, who was appointed as Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the US at the end of 2006.

Prof. Fourie started her career at the UFS in 1998 as researcher in higher education and was later promoted to Director of the Centre for Higher Education Studies (CHESD).

She was appointed on 1 January 2004 as Vice-Rector: Academic Planning and is responsible for among others strategic planning (including strategic planning for the two satellite campuses of the UFS), academic planning (including programme planning and evaluation, institutional quality assurance, enrolment planning, research planning, community service, etc.), regional co-operation and academic development for students.

Media release
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Assistant Director: Media Liaison
Tel: 051 401 2584
Cell: 083 645 2454
E-mail: loaderl.stg@ufs.ac.za
31 July 2007

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