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13 December 2024
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Story Anthony Mthembu
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Photo Charl Devenish
Lieutenant Colonel Dr Rifa Tshivhase, Head of the Department of Surgery at 3 Military Hospital in Bloemfontein, addressed graduates within the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of the Free State on 10 December 2024.
Momentous and joyous – these are some of the words used to describe the December 2024 graduations at the University of the Free State (UFS). In celebration of the academic achievements of its students, the UFS hosted graduation ceremonies at the Callie Human Centre on its Bloemfontein Campus from 9 to 10 December 2024.
Prof Anthea Rhoda, acting Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the UFS, encouraged the graduates to always acknowledge and recognise the significance of this achievement as they transition from being UFS students to being UFS graduates.
Undergraduate and postgraduate achievements
At least 2000 undergraduate qualifications and postgraduate qualifications were conferred. As such, there were some standout academic achievements across the sessions. For instance, Itumeleng Pooe received his Advanced Diploma in Theology cum laude, making him the only graduate in the Faculty of Theology and Religion to receive his qualification with distinction during these graduations. In addition, Dr Bobuin Jr Valey Gemandze Oben – at just 28 years old – was the youngest PhD graduate from the Faculty of Law at the graduation ceremony, which took place on the morning of 9 December 2024.
Conferring Honorary Doctorates
Some highlights from these graduations were the recipients of honorary doctorates, as well as the keynote speakers. The Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences (EMS) at the UFS conferred an honorary degree on Prof Murray Leibbrandt, Research Chair in Poverty and Inequality Research in the Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit (SALDRU) at the University of Cape Town (UCT). In addition, the Faculty of The Humanities at the UFS conferred an honorary degree on HE Bineta Diop, Special Envoy of the Chairperson of the African Union Commission on Women, Peace, and Security.
On the final day of the graduations, graduates within the Faculty of Health Sciences at the UFS were addressed by Lieutenant Colonel Dr Rifa Tshivhase, Head of the Department of Surgery at 3 Military Hospital in Bloemfontein. In her address, Lieutenant Colonel Dr Tshivhase encouraged and challenged the graduates to actively seek out good in the world.
As the December 2024 graduations concluded, several of the graduates within the Faculty of Health Sciences indicated that the most memorable moments in the session were the cheers and applause they received as they walked across the stage.
UFS mathematician rates as top reviewer
2017-09-27
Prof Abdon Atangana is a professor at the
Institute for Groundwater Studies at the University
of the Free State.
Photo: Rulanzen Martin
South Africa was included in the top 30 countries in terms of researchers who added the most pre-publication peer reviews.
Prof Abdon Atangana, a professor of Applied Mathematics at the Institute for Groundwater Studies at the University of the Free State (UFS), is included in the list of top reviewers from top countries, as determined by the number of verified pre-publication peer reviews added to Publons for Publons Peer Review Awards 2017.
Producing the most verified peer reviews
He rated in the top 1% of reviewers (9th), in all fields, who performed the most verified pre-publication peer reviews at Publons for Publons Peer Review Awards 2017. In 2017 he also received the following awards:
- Top reviewers for UFS in the category Mathematics, rating in eighth place. In this category Stanford University rated second. Rating in ninth place is the University of Luxembourg.
- Top reviewers for Mathematics (rating 1st). In this category the Southern Illinois University and the Johns Hopkins University in the US rated in 27th and 25th place respectively.
- Top reviewers for Engineering (rating 47th)
Prof Atangana’s research interests are methods and applications of partial and ordinary differential equations, fractional differential equations, perturbation methods, asymptotic methods, iterative methods, and groundwater modelling.
Passion for the development of science
Key to his success as peer reviewer is his passion for the development of science, his ability to write fair reports about a given manuscript, as well as his knowledge of what has been done and what the challenges are in a given field to be able to give a report that will help the advancement of science.
“Due to the impact of my research papers in the field of mathematics and applied mathematics and also my international recognition in the field of applied mathematics, many editors in more than 100 journals of applied mathematics trust my opinion to assess whether a submitted paper in a given journal of mathematics and applied mathematics can be published or not,” said Prof Atangana.