The Strathmore Institute of Mathematical Sciences (SIMS) held the 6^th International Mathematics Conference from June 28 to July 2. Due to the COVID-19 situation, the conference panned out as a hybrid conference to accommodate participants both physically and virtually.

The conference provided mathematics researchers from around the world, working in various mathematical disciplines, an avenue to discuss latest developments and share their research results in contemporary areas of mathematics research and applications.

The first two days of the conference were dedicated to pre-conference schools on broad research topics of contemporary interest and relevance. The presentations and sessions were all geared towards advancing research and education in Mathematical Sciences in the Big Data era.

On the second day, participants were treated to a session by Prof. Dirk Schlingmann from Missouri Western State University on how to use mathematics and technical computing software to analyze, manipulate, and create music.

Speaking at the opening ceremony at the conference held on the third day, Dr. Vincent Ogutu, Vice Chancellor Designate at Strathmore University (SU) emphasized the importance of participating in conferences, “Conferences raise the bar in research: You may think you are doing great research until you meet a fellow participant who is taking part in cutting edge research. At some point everyone will speak mathematics and that is why I’d like to be present at each subsequent conference.”

Plenary sessions were facilitated by Prof. Bernard Manderick, University of Brussels; Prof Samuel Mwalili, SU and Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology; Prof. Ene Ette, President & CEO at Anoixis Corporation; Dr. David Seifert, Newcastle University and Christine Franklin, K-12 Statistics Ambassador for the American Statistical Association and Senior Lecturer Emeritus, University of Georgia.

On the last day of the conference, Prof. John Odiambo, professor of Mathematics at SU, introduced the Mathematical Research Programme that will be housed under SIMS, “While I’m on sabbatical, I will be working on bringing together a team of researchers to focus on a research programme that will address population and planetary health challenges in Africa.” The programme will make application of mathematical sciences to medicine and biology, agricultural biology, environmental biology and ecology.

By bringing together researchers from all over the world, the conference forged new cross-disciplinary interactions among participants and farther existing partnerships among the international mathematics community and in particular, young researchers in Eastern Africa.

SIMS will host the next conference in 2023.

 

This article was written by Wambui Gachari.    

 

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