During the period from January 3, 2018 to January 19, 2018, Prof. Berhanu performed the following activities for the Postgraduate Program of the mathematics department of Addis Ababa University:
Most of the time was spent on mentoring Jemal Yusuf who is a doctoral student under his direction. He taught him some of the background material in analysis and differential geometry that he needs before he can start reading relevant papers for his research area. He will complete his dissertation under the supervision of Prof. Berhanu.
He also provided advice to the members of the Graduate Committee of the Program on ways to improve the quality of the courses that are being offered both to masters and doctoral students. Currently they are working on the ideas that came up during the discussions.
Prof. Berhanu's visit was partially supported by a grant from the Niels Henrik Abel Board (Norway).
For seven weeks between June 7 and August 6, 2018 he performed the following activities for the Postgraduate Program:
(1) He taught a graduate course that introduced the students to the theory of distributions, the Fourier Transform, differential forms including Stokes theorem, manifolds, and several complex variables. This was an intensive course that met every day for three hours, for five weeks.
(2) He continued mentoring Jemal Yusuf.
(3) Prof. Berhanu gave a public lecture on Boundary Unique Continuation for a class of Elliptic Equations.
Prof. Berhanu continued successfully his collaboration with the mathematics department of the Addis Ababa University, during his two weeks stay from November 25 to December 9, 2018.
This activity was supported by a grant from the Niels Henrik Abel Board (Norway).
Dr Miranda Ijang Tebo-Ewungkem visited the University of Buea, South West Region, Cameroon from January 11th to the 21st, 2018.
During her visit at the University of Buea, Dr Miranda Ijang Tebo-Ewungkem carried out a number of tasks:
Teaching of full course on Mathematical Ecology and Biology to First year Master’s degree students in view of laying the stage for PG training in this area of applied Mathematical Modelling. This is a course that explores the applications of mathematics in Biology and chemistry. A full course of this magnitude at the University of Buea requires 52 contact hours of teaching and 8 hours of evaluation for a total of 60 hours for the student to earn the credit for the course. She taught this course as far as she could go with the understanding that the tutorial part of the course shall be completed in collaboration with the resident collaborator, Dr Gideon A. Ngwa with whom she has been having a continuing collaborative research. This is one of the few times that the PG students of the Department have had firsthand contact with another high calibre academic outside the Department.
She had lengthy and intensive sessions with the PhD students of the Department. The Major outcome of Dr Ewungkem’s visit is the development of the course on Mathematical Ecology and Biology to Postgraduate students in their beginning years, as well as discussions with the PhD students in their course work stage through participation in the course on Mathematical Modelling. There is now a very strong possibility for more postgraduate training in the area of Mathematical modelling in the biological and physical sciences.
The Local Scientific community in the Buea includes the African Institute of Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) that is situated in the nearby city of Limbe. Dr Ewungkem gave an academic talk on “Understanding Vector Borne Diseases: A Mathematical Perspective for the case of Malaria”. The presentation was attended by students from AIMS Cameroon and staff of the University of Buea. Dr Miranda Ijang Tebo-Ewungkem was partially supported by the Abel board.
