Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items
Previous Archive
05 November 2020 | Story Thabo Kessah | Photo Thabo Kessah
Prof Geofrey Mukwada says funding from the US Embassy and Consulates in South Africa will reinforce the ARU mandate.

The University of the Free State (UFS) will further strengthen its ties with the Appalachian State University in the next two academic years through a mountain-to-mountain research project funded by the US Embassy and Consulates in South Africa.

The R8 million project between the UFS and the US institution will cover the two master’s degree programmes in underdeveloped niche areas, meteorological weather stations, leadership capacity building for black women in academia, and doctoral research projects. Qwaqwa Campus departments that will be involved are Physics, Geography, Community Development, and the ARU.

Talking about this collaboration, the project leader, Prof Geofrey Mukwada, said it would bring together researchers from both the UFS and Appalachian State University and enable them to work together to develop what is currently an underdeveloped research niche, i.e. mountain studies. 

“This project will reinforce the mandate of the Afromontane Research Unit (ARU). It will provide the basis for a long-term development agenda through training and infrastructure development. For instance, the project will fund the implementation of two master’s degree programmes – the MSc in Mountain Environments and the MA in Community Development – which are long-term projects,” he said. 

“It will also support innovation in climate change research. Through this project, it will be possible to receive climate data from weather stations that are situated in distant, isolated, and generally inaccessible locations without travelling to those locations. We will be able to understand how the climate of the region is changing and assist in developing adaptation measures and decisions that are applicable to agriculture, water, tourism, environment, and other sectors. This will enhance the capacity of the ARU to contribute to the development of research in mountain environments,” he added. 

There will be a virtual launch of the project on Tuesday 10 November 2020 at 15:00 (CAT).

News Archive

Romania and UFS work together on diagnostic programme
2009-04-28

 
Here are, from the left: Dr William Rae with Prof. Chirvase and Prof. Caramihai of the Romanian research team during their visit to Bloemfontein.
Photo: Supplied
 
A group of academics of Romania visited the Department of Medical Physics of the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of the Free State (UFS) recently. Proff. Mihai Caramihai and Ana Chirvase are senior researchers of the Facultatea de Automatica & Calculatoare, Universitatea Politehnica Bucuresti who are working together with Prof. Charles Herbst and Dr William Rae of the UFS on the project MAmmary Malignancy Modelling using Artificial intelligence, ROmania South Africa, or Mamma Rosa. It is part of a larger local project aimed at implementing a computer-aided diagnosis programme (CAD), designed within the UFS's Department of Medical Physics, and which will take into account some of the South African requirements for computerised diagnostic radiology support. The National Research Foundation (NRF) provided travel funding and Prof. Herbst and Dr Rae visited Bucharest in November 2008 to collaborate with the Romanians. The visiting Romanian researchers were involved in a similar project where they were planning to model the changes in tumours as they grow and as they are treated. Dr Rae says there are many synergies between the two departments. The project has many aspects and there are several possibilities for related sub-projects. As a result the UFS has been able to attract three people to be involved in the project and they will do their Ph.Ds with the UFS. On the visit to Bloemfontein the roles of the researchers in the project were defined and the programme for the three-year collaboration was established. The stimulus created as a result of this collaboration has resulted in projects that will continue for at least the next four years.

We use cookies to make interactions with our websites and services easy and meaningful. To better understand how they are used, read more about the UFS cookie policy. By continuing to use this site you are giving us your consent to do this.

Accept