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14 December 2020
Prof Abdon Atangana
Prof Abdon Atangana is known for his work in developing a new fractional operator used to model real-world problems arising in the fields of science, technology, and engineering. He was recently awarded the TWAS Mohammad A. Hamdan Award by The World Academy of Sciences.
Prof Abdon Atangana, Professor of Applied Mathematics in the Institute for Groundwater Studies at the University of the Free State (UFS), was awarded the TWAS Mohammad A. Hamdan Award by The World Academy of Sciences for the advancement of science in developing countries.

It is the first time that the TWAS Mohammad A. Hamdan Award was bestowed. According to a statement issued by TWAS, this award is given for outstanding mathematical work carried out by a scientist working and living in Africa or the Arab region. It states that the award can be given for work in pure mathematics, applied mathematics, probability, or statistics. Prof Atangana received the award for his contribution to fractal mathematics and partial differential equations.

Making a difference in society

He is known for his research in developing a new fractional operator, the Atangana-Baleanu operator, which is used to model real-world problems. With this operator, he not only describes the rate at which something will change, but also account for disrupting factors that will help to produce better projections.

His work can be applied to make complicated predictions in the fields of science, technology, and engineering. His models can, for instance, help to predict the spread of infectious diseases among people in a settlement, forecasting the number of people who will be infected each day, the number of people who will recover, and the number of people who will die.

Prof Atangana’s models can also help to advise people drilling for water by predicting how groundwater is flowing in a complex geological formation. These are only two examples of how his work can be applied to make a difference in society.

The award from TWAS is the third prestigious commendation he has received in the past month. He was recently named as one of the top 1% scientists on the global Clarivate Web of Science list. His name also appeared on a global list of leading scientists published by Stanford University in the United States. The list is the result of a study published in PLOS Biology, a peer-reviewed open-access journal.

World’s most accomplished scientists

Honours awarded by TWAS and its partners are among the most prestigious for research in the developing world. They recognise outstanding achievements and contributions to science and acknowledge the best work by scientists from the global South.

TWAS, founded in 1983 by a group of scientists under the leadership of Pakistani physicist and Nobel laureate, Abdus Salam, believes that developing nations – by growing strength in science and engineering – will be able to address challenges such as hunger, disease, and poverty, through their knowledge and skills.

TWAS is represented in 100 countries, and of the more than a thousand elected fellows, 14 are Nobel laureates. Eighty-four percent of these fellows are from developing nations. TWAS fellows are also some of the world’s most accomplished scientists.

News Archive

Inaugural lecture explores the compatibility of commercial certainty and constitutionalism
2015-10-15

From the left: Prof Caroline Nicholson,
Prof Elizabeth Snyman van Deventer,
Justice Malcolm Wallis and Dr Lis Lange.

Justice Malcolm Wallis presented his inaugural lecture, entitled “Compatibility of commercial certainty and constitutionalism”, to the Faculty of Law on 17 September, 2015. The occasion was attended by faculty staff, students, and senior members of the Bloemfontein judiciary.

In her welcoming remarks, Prof Caroline Nicholson, Dean of the Faculty of Law at the UFS,  expressed the immense pride the faculty has in hosting such an occasion, and the remarkable work of Justice Wallis in the South African legal fraternity over his forty-year career.

Justice Wallis spoke of the constitution’s important role in ensuring that the law in commercial matters is enforced fairly without the prejudice or undue influence from the desire to obtain or preserve personal advantage. “Try, if you can, to conceive of a society in which commercial relationships are enforced and enforceable purely as a matter of discretion. Ask yourselves:  how would such a society function?” he said.

He reiterated that the role and the rule of law is to guide and protect parties in commercial transactions. It has considerable impact on society in how it is enforced. “Commercial disputes may seem to involve only the parties to the proceedings, but when they involve significant changes to established commercial law, their impact is inevitably wider. Such changes affect other agreements, other relationships, underlying financing transactions, and, in our modern world, contracts of insurance and reinsurance. The latter at least will always have an international dimension,” he said.

He explored specific judgements and the role the concept of “Ubuntu” played in delivering them, the fair enforcement of commercial law, and how this should be an integral part of South African law under the constitution.

 In closing, Justice Wallis stated that “in principle, the existence of a constitution and constitutional rights need not destabilise commercial law, or the reasonable expectations of business people.”

Justice Wallis has received numerous accolades locally and internationally during his long career, including his appointment as a Professor Extraordinary in the Department of Mercantile Law at the University of the Free State in 2014.



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