NITheCS COLLOQUIA

NITheCS Colloquium
‘Science for global transformation’
Prof Stephanie Burton (University of Pretoria)
16 September 2024 

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium
‘The power of mycelium (v2)’
Dr Barbara van Asch (Stellenbosch University)
2 September 2024

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium
‘Humanity in the sciences: ways forward’
Prof Irvy (Igle) Gledhill (University of the Witwatersrand)
26 August 2024

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium
‘Absolute Measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background Frequency Spectrum: New Horizons and Experimental Challenges’
Prof Martin Bucher (Université Paris Cité and Stellenbosch University)
12 August 2024

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium
‘A virtual tour of Einstein’s Universe’
Prof Matthew Bailes (Swinburne University of Technology, Australia)
7 August 2024

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium
‘Top-10 South African Fine Wines: To drink or to invest?’
Dr Mesias Alfeus (Stellenbosch University)
5 August 2024

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW  |  PRESENTATION SLIDES

NITheCS Colloquium
‘The role of intermolecular interactions in chemical processes and materials science’
Prof Catharine Esterhuysen (Stellenbosch University)
29 July 2024

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium
‘Panel discussion and Q&A on African Artificial Intelligence’
Dr Mark Nasila (First National Bank), Prof Bruce Bassett (University of Cape Town), Prof Kanshukan Rajaratnam (Stellenbosch University), Prof Brian Ganson (Stellenbosch University) and Prof Francesco Petruccione (NITheCS)
22 July 2024

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium
‘From rings to lattices’
Dr Amartya Goswami (University of Johannesburg)
15 July 2024 

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium
‘Charting the Future of NITheCS: Progress and Prospects in Research, Training, Engagement, and Africa’
Prof Francesco Petruccione (NITheCS and Stellenbosch University)
24 June 2024  

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium
‘Discovering African Cultural Astronomy’
Dr Jarita Holbrook (University of Edinburgh and University of the Western Cape)
11 June 2024

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium
‘Rational Fourier Approximation and Nonlinear PDEs’
Prof André Weideman (Stellenbosch University)
10 June 2024  

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium
‘The power of contemporary African DNA: Exploring human evolution and health in Africa’
Prof Marlo Möller (Stellenbosch University)
3 June 2024

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium
‘Our Universe, the Movie! (Based on a True Story)’
Prof Romeel Davé (University of Edinburgh and University of the Western Cape)
27 May 2024 

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium
‘Postdoctoral research fellows at South African public universities: Key findings from a national study’
Prof Heidi Prozesky (Stellenbosch University)
20 May 2024

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW  |  PRESENTATION SLIDES

NITheCS Colloquium
‘Building trustworthy national digital identity systems’
Prof Carsten Maple (University of Warwick)
17 May 2024

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium
‘Gamma-ray bursts: The most powerful explosions in the universe’
Prof Soebur Razzaque (University of Johannesburg)
13 May 2024 

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium
‘A trainable and explainable filter-based approach to visual pattern recognition’
Prof George Azzopardi (University of Groningen, Netherlands)
7 May 2024

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium
‘Why Bother?’
Prof Peter Leach (University of KwaZulu-Natal and Durban University of Technology)
6 May 2024

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium
‘Cosmology with viscous dark matter’
Dr Anslyn John (Stellenbosch University)
29 April 2024

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium
‘How close is Artificial General Intelligence and how will it affect fundamental science?’
Prof Bruce Bassett (University of Cape Town)
22 April 2024

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW​

NITheCS Colloquium
‘Use of poetry to foster inquiry into Mathematics’
Boitumelo Moletsane (University of the Witwatersrand)
15 April 2024

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW​

NITheCS Colloquium
‘From So Simple A Beginning: Understanding Large Language Models’
Prof Sir Nigel Shadbolt FRS FREng FBCS (Jesus College Oxford and University of Oxford, UK)
10 April 2024

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW​

NITheCS Colloquium
‘How can Central Banks Help Finance the Transition to a Net-zero Economy’
Prof Matheus Grasselli (McMaster University, Canada)
8 April 2024

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW​

NITheCS Colloquium ​
‘Evolution of Quantum Systems Subjected to Noise’
Prof Marco Merkli (Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada)
25 March 2024 

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium 
‘Photons in quantum communication and computation’
Pablo Veganzones Parellada (University of Valladolid, Spain)
18 March 2024 

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium ​
‘Quantum Physics and Biology: the Local Wavefunction Approach’
Prof George Ellis, FRS (University of Cape Town)
11 March 2024

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW  |  PRESENTATION SLIDES

NITheCS Colloquium ​
‘How to build highways in a cell’
Prof Kristian Müller-Nedebock (Stellenbosch University)
4 March 2024

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium
‘Art of Computational Drug Design – Possibility of Victory without Battle’
Prof Özlem Tastan Bishop (Rhodes University)
26 February 2024 

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium 
‘DIRISA: A National Infrastructure for Data Democracy’
Dr Anwar Vahed (Data Intensive Research Initiative of South Africa)
19 February 2024 

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium 
‘From Satellites to Molecules – Discovery & Explanation of the Slowest German Wasp Invasion in the World’
Dr Ruan Veldtman (Stellenbosch University and SANBI)
12 February 2024

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium 
‘The Changing Landscape of Financial Predictive Models’
Prof Tanja Verster (North-West University)
4 December 2023

ABSTRACT   |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium 
‘The Role of Science Centres in STEAM Education’
Dr Lungile Sitole (University of Johannesburg)
27 November 2023

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium 
‘A Century of Biophotons’
Dr Adriana Marais (Stellenbosch University)
20 November 2023

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium 
‘Probing the nature of many-body entanglement in quantum spin liquids: insights from lattice field theories’
Dr Aniekan Magnus Ukpong (University of KwaZulu-Natal)
13 November 2023

ABSTRACT   |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium 
‘What Makes Nanoporous Gold a Unique Catalyst? Insights from Modelling Studies of its Surface Chemistry’
Prof Lyudmila Moskaleva (University of the Free State)
6 November 2023

ABSTRACT 

NITheCS Colloquium 
‘Universality of the Elemental Abundances’
Prof Nico Orce (University of the Western Cape)
30 October 2023

ABSTRACT   |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium  
‘Simple Threads, Chaotic Weaves: Unravelling the Complex Tapestry of Nature’
Dr Sandra MacFadyen (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam & Stellenbosch University)
23 October 2023

ABSTRACT   |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium  
‘The Financial Impact of Carbon Emissions on Power Utilities Under Climate Scenarios’
Prof Andrea Macrina (University College London & University of Cape Town)
20 October 2023

ABSTRACT   

NITheCS Colloquium  
‘The Future: Machine Learning in Cosmology and Astrophysics’
Dr Guo-Jian Wang (University of KwaZulu-Natal)
16 October 2023

ABSTRACT   |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium  
‘FEDGEN: A FEDerated GENeral ‘Omics’ Cloud Computing Infrastructure for Precision Medicine and Artificial Intelligence Research in Africa’
Prof Emmanuel Adetiba (Durban University of Technology & Covenant University, Nigeria)
9 October 2023

ABSTRACT   |  VIEW  |  SLIDES

NITheCS Colloquium
‘Engaging in a digital educated world with large scale-projects’
Dr Christine Darve (European Spallation Source, Sweden)
2 October 2023

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW  |  SLIDES

NITheCS Colloquium 
‘Quantum machine learning with parameterized quantum circuits’
Dr Ryan Sweke (IBM Research)
18 September 2023

ABSTRACT   |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium 
‘Should we do applied Complex Systems Dynamics in primary school?’
Prof Fabio Dercole (Politecnico di Milano, Italy)
11 September 2023

ABSTRACT   |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium 
‘Machine Learning Research Initiatives and Contributions from Africa: A Three-Decade Retrospective’
Prof Absalom Ezugwu (North-West University)
4 September 2023

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

Colloquium, presented by NITheCS and the School of Data Science and Computational Thinking, Stellenbosch University
‘Cosmology and Computation: Challenges for Mapping the Early Universe’
Prof Martin Bucher (Laboratoire APC, Université Paris Cité/CNRS)
31 August 2023

ABSTRACT 

NITheCS Colloquium 
‘On what Probability Theory and Mathematical Statistics do’
Prof Estate Khmaladze (Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand)
30 August 2023 

ABSTRACT   |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium 
‘Big data: the South African strategy and implementation’
Dr Anwar Vahed (Data Intensive Research Initiative of South Africa)
21 August 2023

ABSTRACT   |  VIEW  |  SLIDES  |  NATIONAL STRATEGY

NITheCS Colloquium 
‘Spatial Epidemiology’
Prof Inger Fabris-Rotelli (University of Pretoria)
14 August 2023

ABSTRACT   |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium 
‘Advantages and challenges of artificial intelligence for universities’
Dr Japie Greeff (North-West University)
7 August 2023

ABSTRACT   |  VIEW  |  SLIDES

NITheCS Colloquium 
‘A New Horizon for Teaching and Learning of Mathematics’
Prof Zurab Janelidze (Stellenbosch University)
31 July 2023

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW  |  SLIDES: multi-media version / PDF

NITheCS Colloquium 
‘Wetting and Nonwetting of Fluids’
Prof Joseph Indekeu (KU Leuven, Belgium)
24 July 2023

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium 
‘Approximating PDEs with wide neural networks’
Prof Sam Cohen (University of Oxford, UK)
21 July 2023 

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium 
‘SOFR Term Structure Dynamics – Discontinuous Short Rates and Stochastic Volatility Forward Rates’ (joint work with Alan Brace and Karol Gellert)
Prof Erik Schlögl (University of Technology, Sydney, Australia)
14 July 2023 

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium
‘Quantum Kernels: Challenges and Solutions’
Prof Alessandra Di Pierro (University of Verona, Italy)
3 July 2023 

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium
‘Black holes and nilmanifolds: quasinormal modes as the fingerprints of extra dimensions?’
Prof Alan Cornell (University of Johannesburg)
26 June 2023

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium
Panel discussion: ‘Building a Sustainable Future: The Power of Basic Sciences’
Panelists: Mesias Alfeus (SU), MJ (Thinus) Booysen (SU), David Holgate (UWC), Guy Midgley (SU), Hugh Patterton (SU) and Ethel Phiri (SU)
19 June 2023

ABSTRACT 

NITheCS Colloquium
‘South African Mathematical Sciences Research Landscape in 2050’
Prof Loyiso Nongxa (University of the Witwatersrand)
12 June 2023

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW  |  PRESENTATION

NITheCS Colloquium
‘Big data and computational strategies in metabolomics studies’
Dr Fidele Tugizimana (University of Johannesburg)
5 June 2023

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium
‘Towards Resolving Challenges Associated with Climate Change Modelling in the African Continent’
Prof Olugbenga Oluwagbemi (Middlesex University, UK)
29 May 2023

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium
‘Observations and the Damping of Gravitational Waves by Matter’
Prof Nigel Bishop (Rhodes University)
22 May 2023

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium
‘On Sublocales: Metric Sublocales and Property S’
Dr Cerene Rathilal (University of KwaZulu-Natal)
15 May 2023

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium
‘African Open Science Platform – Towards a Continental Open Science Vision’
Dr Tshiamo Motshegwa (African Open Science Platform)
8 May 2023

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium
‘Multi-Omics and Spatial Single Cell Methods for Precision Medicine of Blood Cancers’
Dr Wolfgang Huber (European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Germany)
24 April 2023

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium 
‘The mathematics of love’
Dr Pietro Landi (Stellenbosch University)
27 March 2023

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

Colloquium, co-hosted by NITheCS and the Department of Physics at Stellenbosch University 
‘Open Quantum Systems’
Prof Marco Merkli (Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada)
24 March 2023

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium 
‘Categories, groups, and non-abelian algebraic structures’
Prof Marino Gran (Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium)
20 March 2023

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

Colloquium, co-hosted by NITheCS and the Department of Physics at Stellenbosch University 
‘Minimal operational approach to quantum non-Markovianity’
Dr Adrian Budini (Centro Atómico Bariloche, Argentina)
17 March 2023

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium 
‘Tsetse, trypanosomiasis and climate change: Lessons from Field Data collected in the Zambezi Valley of Zimbabwe’
Prof John Hargrove (South African Centre for Epidemiological Modelling and Analysis – SACEMA)
13 March 2023

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium 
‘A Gentle Quantitative Modelling Approach for Rough Crude Oil Prices’
Dr Mesias Alfeus (Stellenbosch University)
6 March 2023

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

Colloquium, co-hosted by NITheCS and Department of Physics, Stellenbosch University
‘Universal cooling dynamics toward a quantum critical point’
Emma King (University of Saarland, Germany)
3 March 2023

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium
‘Describing language: formal and empirical approaches’
Prof Menno van Zaanen (South African Centre for Digital Language Resources – SADiLaR)
27 February 2023

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

Colloquium, co-hosted by NITheCS and Department of Physics, Stellenbosch University
‘Moving Towards Quantum Technologies: The Case of Quantum Batteries’
Prof Dario Rosa (Institute for Basic Science; University of Science & Technology, South Korea)
24 February 2023

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium
‘AI and Chess: A Retrospective and Future Story’
Ulrich Paquet (AIMS)
20 February 2023

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium
‘What are the possible near field structures one can define over the multiplicative group of a near field?’
Dr Leandro Boonzaaier (SU) and Dr Sophie Marques (SU)
13 February 2023

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW  |  PRESENTATION SLIDES

NITheCS Colloquium
‘Knowledge Representation and Reasoning (in the age of Machine Learning)’
Prof Tommie Meyer (University of Cape Town)
6 February 2023

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

Colloquium, cohosted by NITheCS and Department of Physics, Stellenbosch University
‘Solving nonlinear classification problems with a complex valued almost linear perceptron’
Prof Uwe Jaekel (Koblenz University of Applied Sciences, Germany)
3 February 2023

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium
‘Mathematical Contests in South Africa, Africa and the World’
Dr Liam Baker (Stellenbosch University) and Phil Labuschagne (JIMCOBSA)
28 November 2022

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium
‘Goldilocks molecules in the Anthropocene’
Prof Guy Midgley (Stellenbosch University)
21 November 2022
This event aligns with a topic of the International Year of Basic Sciences for Sustainable Development

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium
‘The origin of irreversibility in thermodynamic processes – or is ‘memory’ a new parameter for the physical state of matter?’
Prof Emil Roduner (University of Stuttgart and University of Pretoria)
14 November 2022

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW

NITheCS Colloquium
‘Basic Sciences for Sustainable Development: a Global Perspective and a Year of Celebrations’
Prof Sandro Scandolo (Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Italy)
7 November 2022
This event aligns with a topic of the International Year of Basic Sciences for Sustainable Development

ABSTRACT  |  VIEW