Category: Call

The Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics of the University of Cape Town are offering Shuttleworth Postgraduate Scholarships (MSc & PhD levels only) to highly motivated black South African students, who aspire to become academics. The Shuttleworth Postgraduate Scholarship aims at training the next generation of black South African pure and applied mathematicians by providing a unique learning programme at one of the leading Centres of Mathematics in Africa.

The deadline for applications is 7 November 2025. For more details, kindly see the official advertisement: Advert Shuttleworth 2025

The South African Mathematical Society (SAMS) invites nominations for a new SAMS representative on the South African Mathematics Challenge (SAMC) Problem Committee. This committee plays a vital role in shaping one of the country’s premier mathematics competitions, aimed at fostering problem-solving skills and a love of mathematics among learners beyond the conventional primary school curriculum.

For more details about the SAMC, see the link below:
https://www.samf.ac.za/en/sa-mathematics-challenge

Deadline for nominations: Friday, 10 October 2025
Submission: Please send nominations (with a short motivation) to the SAMS General Secretary, Dr. Christian Budde, at buddecj@ufs.ac.za.

In preparation for this year’s AGM meeting at the 69th annual SAMS Congress scheduled to take place at Nelson Mandela University in December 2025, the current SAMS Council is requesting nominations for four positions that will become vacant at the end of the year. Specifically, these include the important portfolios of the President, Vice President, Financial Manager and Liaison, currently held by Prof. Zurab Janelidze, Prof. Amartya Goswami, Dr. Wen-Chi Kuo, and Prof. Mapundi Banda, respectively.

For more details on the responsibilities of the Council members and a description of these positions, kindly consult the SAMS website: https://www.sams.ac.za/governance-sams

Please send any nominations of capable individuals, accompanied by this nomination form and a short CV of the nominee, to the General Secretary of SAMS, Dr. Christian Budde, at buddecj@ufs.ac.za or secretary@sams.ac.za by no later than 30 September 2025.

The Weiss Fund for Research in Development Economics invites candidates to apply to the Kabir Banerjee Predoctoral Fellowship. The Fellowship seeks to expand the representation of researchers from low and lower-middle-income countries in leading predoctoral programs. Successful candidates will receive Weiss Fund endorsement and may be invited by leading faculty to apply to pre-approved 2-year predoctoral research positions at leading universities.

Past candidates have been matched with economists at MIT, Stanford, Northwestern, Princeton, UChicago, and other leading institutions. The Fellowship supports candidates with substantial interest and potential for success in an academic career in development economics who otherwise may have limited access to mentorship and training from leading economists.

We particularly value candidates with strong math skills, especially those who are able to obtain top scores on the math GRE. We welcome applications from fields such as Mathematics, Engineering, Statistics,  Computer Science, and Physics. Candidates do not need to have economics training or experience in order to apply, but they must be interested in pursuing a PhD in Economics and thus be willing to learn about the field. If admitted into one of these pre-approved positions, Fellows will work directly with one of the world’s leading development economists.

Please share the attached materials with any students or recent graduates who might be interested:
Kabir Banerjee Program Information
Turning Math Skills into Global Impact

Ram Sundaram
Program Manager, Weiss Fund

Dear SAMS member,

The 68^th Annual SAMS Congress of the South African Mathematical Society (SAMS) will be hosted by Nelson Mandela University in Gqeberha on 2 – 5 December 2025. The Local Organizing Committee (LOC) of the SAMS congress would like to send a request out to SAMS members who are interested in organizing a special session as part of the congress. All interested persons should please inform Prof M Weigt via email, Martin.Weigt@mandela.ac.za, by no later than Tuesday 17 June of his / her interest to host a special session and a title of the session. A short email is all that is required.

The following is an alphabetically ordered list of special sessions that were organized at last year’s SAMS conference. We invite the organizers of these sessions to inform the LOC whether they are willing to continue hosting their respective sessions.
In addition, proposals for new special sessions are warmly welcomed and encouraged.

1. Categories, Algebra, Topology and Logic
2. Discrete Mathematics
3. Functional Analysis and Operator Theory
4. Lie symmetries and other approaches in solving nonlinear differential equations
5. Mathematical Modelling of Ecological and Epidemiological Systems
6. Mathematics of Gravity
7. Tertiary Mathematics Education Research

Thank you very much for your assistance.

Kind regards,
Prof Martin Weigt

Dear colleagues

I am pleased to invite you to contribute to a Special Session on “Evolution Equations and Operator Semigroups: Theory and Applications” at the forthcoming AIMS Conference in Athens, Greece, to be held 6–10 July 2026 (https://aimsconference.org/conferences/2026/index.html) This session will bring together researchers working on the modeling of dynamic systems—ranging from well-posedness and asymptotic analysis to nonlinear and stochastic perturbations—and their myriad applications in control theory, fluid dynamics, population biology, and beyond.

Our goal is to foster an interdisciplinary dialogue that bridges abstract operator theory with practical challenges. We particularly welcome talks that highlight novel methodologies—such as integro-differential approaches, fractional calculus, and non-autonomous frameworks—as well as contributions that showcase data-driven or infinite-dimensional perspectives. Early-career researchers and women in mathematics are especially encouraged to participate, enriching our community’s future.

The special session format allocates 30-minute slots for each presentation (including discussion), in line with the conference’s overall structure for special sessions. While the official abstract-submission deadlines are yet to be announced on the AIMS site, I would be grateful to receive your expressions of interest by e-mail. Please send related questions and abstract suggestions directly to my email at BuddeCJ@ufs.ac.za. For full session details and to prepare your submission, please visit the session webpage:
http://aimsconference.org/AIMS-Conference/conf-reg2026/ss/changeApp12.php?ssid=111AIMS Conference

I very much look forward to assembling an engaging program and hope to see many of you in Athens for what promises to be a vibrant week of mathematical exchange. I need to emphasize that I will not be able to cover any registration fees, travel or accommodation costs involved.

Best wishes
Christian Budde

Please take note of the call for Universities to nominate their best honours student(s) who enrolled for a degree in Mathematics and/or Applied Mathematics in 2024 for the SAMS Bronze medal. The contact person in this regard is the General Secretary of SAMS, Dr. Christian Budde: buddecj@ufs.ac.za or secretary@sams.ac.za. 

For more details regarding the procedure and participation, please consult the SAMS website (accessible from this link).

Joint LMS-SAMS-SAMSA meeting will be hosted in South Africa in the first week of September. The meeting will have a scientific component, but its main goal is to identify and establish/strengthen mathematical partnership(s) between UK and Southern Africa. SAMS members are requested please to write an email to SAMS President (president@sams.ac.za) if they have suggestions who could be included/invited from Southern Africa or the UK to participate in the meeting (self-nominations are welcome). SAMS is looking for mathematicians (at any stage of their career) who are most likely to engage in long-lasting collaboration across UK and Southern Africa in mathematics and its applications (existing collaborations included if there is a prospect for strengthening them). Resources are limited and we cannot guarantee that we will be able to approach/invite all individuals identified. Preference will be given to those who work in areas that are well established and well represented in Southern Africa or the UK and those who lead a group in a particular area. Please provide context with the nominations (if there are existing collaborations, with whom, and what are the indications that the person is interested in such collaborations). Nominations should please reach the SAMS President by 10 May, but later nominations may also be considered.