A total of 252 students from 32 different African countries have graduated from the AIMS Diploma Programme. Profiles of selected AIMS alumni are included below.
Yves SemegniCameroonian Yves Semegni completed his PhD 3 years after leaving AIMS in 2005. He completed a Masters programme in Pure Mathematics at Stellenbosch University and this was then upgraded to a PhD. Yves worked as a tutor at AIMS before moving into the Biomathematics field. He is now a postdoctorate at the Computational Biology Group at the University of Cape Town.
Angelina Lutambi was one of 9 children who grew up in rural Tanzania. Her parents were small scale farmers who had little formal education themselves but they encouraged her to go to school, where she clearly had great aptitude for mathematics. Angelina had to finance her own schooling, and that of her siblings by selling cooldrinks. Her hard work paid off when she was awarded a grant to study at Dar Es Salaam University. Angelina graduated from the AIMS Postgraduate Diploma Programme in June 2004. She then completed a Masters at Stellenbosch University investigating the properties of models of the spread of HIV/AIDS. She returned to Tanzania in 2007, and now works as a research scientist for the Ifakara Health Institute in Tanzania. She is also a doctoral student at the Swiss Tropical Institute, Basel University.
Emmanuel OsalusiNigerian born Emmanuel Osalusi completed the AIMS postgraduate Diploma in 2004 after which he went on to complete a Masters at the University of Limpopo. He has recently completed his PhD at the University of Herriot Watt, Scotland and is now employed by Total Gas and Power, UK as a numerical hydrodynamic engineer. Emmanuel is researching the combined effect of wave and tidal forces on tidal turbines at a Marine Energy Converter site. Until now, the data sets required to study the combined effect of these elements have not been available. Emmanuel has published 11 articles.
Daphney Singo was born on the 3rd of February 1983 in Thoyandou, South Africa. After completing the Advanced Mathematical Sciences Programme (AMSP) and the Postgraduate Diploma in Mathematical Sciences at AIMS, she went on to study towards a Master of Science in Experimental Nuclear Physics at the University of Cape Town. She was awarded a a Mandela Rhodes Scholarship. Although Daphney had originally planned to continue studying mathematics, her time at AIMS allowed her to realise her passion for nuclear physics. Daphney is now studying towards a PhD at Stellenbosch University. “I am determined to acquire all the necessary skills required to lift this great nation to greater heights; and to make it my responsibility to see that other women are motivated to acquire scientific knowledge and skills.”
After graduating from AIMS in 2004, Tendai Mugwagwa completed her Masters in Applied Mathematics at the University of Cape Town in 2005. She recently completed her PhD at the University of Utrecht, Netherlands where her work was on mathematical modelling and data analysis of T cell dynamics in lymphopenic conditions (understanding disease dynamics during HIV infection).
Shehu was born in Nigeria in 1980. He completed the Diploma programme in 2004 and went on to register for a Masters at UCT. He then completed the Advanced Diploma (Part III) and a PhD at Cambridge University and has now been appointed as a post-doctorate at the ICTP, Trieste, Italy.