Padhu's NMAIST - VLP home Page

Welcome to my NMAIST - VLP home page

PADMANABHAN SESHAIYER

Professor
Department of Mathematical Sciences
George Mason University
4400 University Drive, MS: 3F2
Science and Tech I
Fairfax, VA 22030
Phone: (703) 993-9787
Fax: (703) 993-1491

| VLP | Research |

2012 Volunteer Lecturer Program

With a desire to bring an end to the knowledge deficit in Sub-Saharan Africa in comparison to the rest of the world prompted former President Nelson Mandel to propose the establishment of African Institutes of Science and Technology (AISTs) and this AIST concept was then developed by World Bank Institute with the focus of developing local Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) capacity to harness the resources of nature, including human capital, for the sustainable socio-economic devleopment of Sub-Saharan Africa.

The Nelson Mandela African Institute of Science and Technology in Arusha (NM AIST-Arusha) is one in a network of AISTs, which is an sutonomous regional institution that caters for the Eastern African region of Sub-Saharan Africa. This institute has been established with a mission to train and develop the next generation of African scientists, engineers and technologists, who will impact on Africa's development through the application of science, engineering and technology. For more details about the institution visit NM AIST-Arusha .

As a part of the Volunteer Lecturer Program sponsored by the Developing Countries Strategy Group of the International Mathematics Union (IMU) , in cooperation with International Center for Pure and Applied Mathematics (CIMPA) and the U.S. National Committee for Mathematics , I had the opportunity to visit NM AIST-Arusha from August 9, 2012 to September 6, 2012. During this time, I was able to work with faculty in the School of Mathematics, Communication, Computational Science and Engineering (MCCSE) to develop an introductory mathematical modeling and scientific computing course employing MATLAB that all future incoming students to NM-AIST will be expected to take in the first semester. The course will cover all fundamental concepts in modeling, analysis and computation adapted to the 5-week modular form of coursework that NM-AIST offers. This course will become a fundamental course for all the students at NM-AIST that will help them develop a strong Masters and PhD proposal in their program. As a part of the course development, I created a detailed course guide in the form of a textbook is being created which will be posted soon.

Research Interactions

I also had the opportunity to visit several leading scientists and directors of prominent programs who visited NM AIST-Arusha for the Second Annual East African Universities Mathematics Programme (EAUMP) conference. I gave the first Keynote address at the meeting on "Multidisciplinary research in mathematical aciences with applications to real world problems in biological, bio-inspired and engineering systems."

The highlight of this trip was my interaction with the students, in particular, to work with them on helping them develop their Master's and Doctoral research proposals. During this time, I had the opportunity to interact with students and faculty on a regular basis from various schools at NM AIST-Arusha including Mathematics, Computational and Communcation Science and Engineering; Life Sciences and Bioengineering; Materials Science and Engineering and; Water Resources and Environmental Science and Engineering. Having directed students on a variety of projects at all levels in the last decade on these areas, I was able to share my work with them and discuss potential collaborations that we can build from both our experise. In this regard, I was able to help out by giving lectures on creating effective research proposals and also helped many students to help come up with a focussed research topic that they will work on to obtain their Masters or PhD in the next year or two. I was happy to engage the students by providing them interdisciplinary collabortive research opportunities that helped to promote the much needed awareness of the applications of mathematics to real-world problems.

I was (and the NM-AIST students) very happy to learn that NM-AIST offered me an adjunct professorship that will give me an opportunity to either co-advise or advise students as they work towards getting a Ms or PhD. They will work with me on a variety of projects that will involve the development of efficient mathematical model and simulationof real-world problems of national importance in Tanzania that will be in the areas of agriculture, food-security, bio-diversity, mobile-medicine, m-learning, disease modeling and prevention, waste managment, water resources, tobacco and the environment, petrol adulteration, fish harvesting and many more. I am really looking forward to this collaboration. Please find below some of the current students at NM-AIST who are going to change the future in Tanzania!

(with DVC Prof. Shemwetta, Dr. Yaw and NM-AIST students)